THANKS to a brilliant century from Macarthur’s Ollie Wortley, the Demons posted a very healthy total of 272 off their 75 overs against St Andrew’s in a Hamilton and District Cricket Association’s (HDCA) A grade round 11 clash on Saturday.

With the scorching sun shining down on Clem Young Oval, the visitors won the toss and elected to bat first, as Charlie Summers and Hamish Wortley strolled to the crease with the hope of starting the innings well.

The pair had put 20 on the board when Drews’ Dale Harris got the breakthrough, rattling Summers’ stumps for 16, bringing Michael Brilley to the crease.

Luke Purcell claimed the big wicket of Brilley for 21, before Wortley also fell for 28, handing Harris his second wicket of the day.

At 3-75, the Drews were right in the contest, and it felt they were only a couple of quick wickets away from getting right on top of Macarthur.

Ollie Wortley had other ideas after strolling to the crease at the end of the 18th over, scoring freely alongside Kyle Smitten, as the pair found their groove at the crease and scored at a good rate.

After getting himself in, Wortley began to find the boundary aerially to hit the first six of the innings off Brendan Huf, before capitalising on another maximum the following over against Harris.

Smitten got in on the runs as well and the pair batted up until the 42nd over, which saw Steve Cameron remove the dangerous Smitten (32) with the team’s score at 144.

Wortley continued on to bring up his maiden A grade century, which was well received by teammates and set the Demons up for a very competitive total.

St Andrew’s bowler, Latham Wishart got going as he picked up the middle-order wickets of Jack Wortley (four) and Sam Lambevski (13), while James Guthrig removed Matt Lindsay for 11.

Wortley was the last player to fall for the day with a huge individual score of 118 off 169 balls.

His massive knock included seven fours and six maximums which helped bring Macarthur’s total score to 272, a score that will take a bit of chasing this weekend.

Harris was the pick of the St Andrew’s bowlers, finishing with 3-46 from his 14 overs.

Pigeon Ponds v Hamilton

SIMON Close has continued his stellar season for Pigeon Ponds, falling just short of his second ton, after he made a hard-earned 95 off 174 balls at Dahl Turf.

Close was out in the sweltering heat for a gruelling 211 minutes, which showed his ability to remain concentrated for very long periods of time.

After winning the toss, Close started well with Ponds’ captain, Peter Staude and while wickets fell around Close all day, he remained in the middle working hard to anchor the innings.

Pigeon Ponds’ innings went in stages, as the visitors started well before losing a few quick wickets, the middle order stabilised the scoreboard again, before the lower order was dismissed almost without scoring.

Hamilton captain, Simon Sharrock, was pivotal with the ball, taking the important wickets of both openers and finishing with figures of 2-29 off 10 overs.

When Staude was removed for 38, it began a quick loss of wickets for the visitors as Michael Close (two), Noah Hildebrand (duck) and Hugh Douglas (five) fell within quick succession.

In a similar fashion to the previous game, Close was the only batsman to make it past 40 and without him, it would’ve been an uphill battle to generate a competitive score.

Cameos from the likes of Anthony Close (24), Hamish McCrae (28) and Jack Beaton (33-not-out) down the order were enough to push the score north of 200.

Blues’ young spinner, Archie Buck, got Lachie Craig for an eight-ball duck, as the last three wickets fell for just six runs to leave Pigeon Ponds all out for 231.

Cam Templeton persisted with the ball and despite the heat, he bowled 21.5 overs to finish with 3-45, while Buck took 2-36 from his nine overs.

College v Grampians

THIS match-up is evenly poised at the moment after College posted 210 after the Eagles were bowled out with just two overs left in the day’s play.

Pumas’ Stefan Burnell started proceedings well for his side on Dunkeld Turf, claiming the early wicket of Jack Austin (three), but the experience of Heath Schmidt and Hamish Bailey consolidated the innings, rotating the strike and pushing the ball in gaps.

The pair combined for a 98-run stand before Josh Gordon removed Schmidt for 31.

Henry Bensch strolled to join Bailey at the crease, having just reached double figures once this season, and was determined to change his fortune and the youngster did just that, hitting six fours on his way to 36.

Arguably the most important play of the day was when Burnell rattled Charles Murrie’s stumps for just two runs, sending the College captain back to the sheds, and the side was reeling with the scoreboard reading 5-130.

Murrie hasn’t fired as much as he would’ve liked this season, but when he does, he takes the game away from the opposition with a prime example coming against Macarthur earlier in the season, where he scored 70 off 30 balls.

Bailey worked hard for 64 runs, but the rest of the Eagles’ batting order fell cheaply with the exception of Lachie Brown, who was left stranded at the crease on 37-not-out.

Burnell was the pick of the bowlers taking 4-33 from 16 overs with six maidens next to his name while Harrison Wood added another three wickets to his season tally cleaning up the tail order.