Fisher and Daburger shine against Parkes

Orange travelled to Parkes’ Woodward Oval for the second round of the Western Premier League competition on Sunday. We were greeted by some light rain which hung around for several hours, delaying the start of the match by over 2 hours. When we finally got the covers off, Parkes won the toss and elected to bowl in the match that had been reduced to 37 overs per side.

Our innings got off to a great start with skipper Tom Belmonte hitting a 4 and a 6 off the first 2 legitimate deliveries, with some wides and another 4 later in the over, we had 17 on the board after the first over. Belmonte was out caught in the next over, Cohen Schubert joined George Fisher at the crease with the pair pushing the score along to 86 before Schubert was bowled by Zac Bayliss for 29.

Rory Daburger and Fisher took the score along to 2/128 at the drinks break (19 overs). The partnership continued to bloom with the Parkes bowlers struggling to come up with some answers. When Daburger was finally dismissed for 65 at the start of the 35^th over, our score had progressed to 3-270. Lachie Wykes and then Fletcher Byrne helped add the finishing touches to our innings, as we finished on 5-298. George Fisher carried his bat to finish unbeaten on 154 from only 104 deliveries.

With rain again starting to fall as our innings was coming to its end, the covers went back on over the innings break, with fingers crossed they wouldn’t stay on for too long. The showers cleared and play resumed on time and it didn’t take long for our bowling attack to click into gear.

With Lachie Wykes struggling with his footing, Tom Blowes was introduced into the attack in the 5^th over and bowled in tandem with Rory Daburger who opened from the other end to keep the pressure on the Parkes batters. At the end of Daburger’s 8 over spell, Parkes had slumped to 6-66 with Rory picking up all 6 wickets to finish with the figures of 6/22. Harry Dyer and Cohen Schubert helped to close out the win, sharing the final 4 wickets between them as Parkes were all out for 79.

Our next match is against Bathurst on 9 November at Wade Park. The Presidents Cup trophy will also be on the line for this match for the first time since the 2018-19 season which was the last time that the then Mitchell Cricket Council held the Presidents Cup competition.

Orange 5-298 (George Fisher 154no Cohen Schubert 65 Cohen Schubert 29) def Parkes 79 (Rory Daburger 6/22 Cohen Schubert 2/1 Harry Dyer 2/3) by 219 runs