RAIN has heavily impacted round eight of the Hamilton and District Cricket Association (HDCA) A grade competition with only one game getting a result as all others were washed out, with Casterton District suffering a third straight loss.
The HDCA match committee has adopted the policy of all games going ahead, seeing as the association now encompasses such a large geographical area which could well see rain falling at Pigeon Ponds but sunshine at Portland.
The rain washed out every game except the game at Island Park, with the home side falling to Gorae-Portland.
Casterton District captain, Kaden Humphries, won the toss and elected to bowl first, looking to get any assistance from the surface for his bowlers.
The town received over an inch of rain on Friday and the curator is to be commended for getting the wicket up for play, but Zac Duncan-Rethus looked to be batting on a road, posting 46 from 65 balls opening the batting.
He and Finn Saurine added 38 for the first wicket before Saurine (seven) was trapped LBW by Humphries, while Duncan-Rethus was on his way with 72 on the board, as Humphries found the edge of his bat as the ball passed through to Oliver Foster behind the stumps.
Nick Wills (seven) came and went, and the visitors were 3-79 when Stephen O’Brien took over the majority of the scoring, as he and Harvey Reynolds (four) took the score to 105 before Reynolds was on his way.
O’Brien fell for 39 with the tally on 5-123, as Jedd Rhook broke through to capture his wicket and the decision to bowl first appeared to be the right one.
The Go-Ports bottom order kept the locals out in the field for the whole 45 overs, as Ryan Gadsen (13), Andre Wallace (18), Sam Atchison (10) and Zac Stuchbery (10-not-out) kept the scoreboard ticking over to see the visitors post 9-176 at stumps.
While it was a score Casterton District would have been happy with, it was also a tally that Gorae-Portland would have seen as defendable.
Ben Holmes (zero) and Sullivan Gibbs (one) were back in the pavilion with only eight on the board, and with Rick Killey missing from the line-up, the Maroons were going to have to dig deep if they were going to hunt down the target.
Humphries joined Michael Jarrad and the pair took the score to 72 before Humphries fell to Tom Roberts for 30, which became four wickets down when Jarrad (36) was ran out.
At 4-77 Carey Megaw (23) was going to have to lead the hunt with assistance from Logan Gibbs, Jacob Edwards and Joshua Jones, if the locals were going to stop the visitors from claiming the points.
It wasn’t to be, as O’Brien bowled the best spell of the season to date to claim 7-26 - including a hat-trick.
The victory puts Gorae-Portland into fourth place on the ladder, as both teams still have a chance to earn a spot in the one-day final.
Grampians dw St Andrew’s
ST Andrew’s was sent into bat against Grampians at Dunkeld Turf after losing the coin toss on a wicket that favoured the bowlers.
The wicket could be described as an old fashioned ‘sticky’, where the ball would leap at the batsman from a length and also broke through the surface on numerous occasions.
There was only time enough for 16 overs in total before the rain washed out the remainder of the day with the visitors reaching 2-36.
