Tourist Hotel lead the way in second grade comp following win over Tatts

Tourist Hotel Cricket Club claimed outright first place on the Narrabri District Cricket Association’s second grade T20 ladder on Saturday with a dominant victory over Tatts at Cooma Oval.

The match was initially scheduled to be played at Leitch Oval but was moved to a synthetic pitch at Cooma Oval after the three town fields were washed out due to last week’s rain.

The Tourist Hotel outfit was guided to victory by co-captain Chris Smith, who backed up a brilliant effort with the ball in a round one win against RSL by producing a super performance with the bat in round two. He entered the middle at number five in the sixth over of the first innings and smashed an unbeaten 75 to guide Tourist to 7-165 from 20 overs before the side knocked over Tatts for 95 runs in 19.2 overs.

The 70-run win saw Tourist Hotel move to outright first place on the ladder and finish the day as the only team in the comp to be undefeated after two rounds.

They are now on 14 points, ahead the SignPrintStitch Colts and RSL (eight points each) and Tatts (two points).

RSL met the Colts at Cooma Oval on Saturday and scored a six-wicket win.

Tourist Hotel sent co-captain Adam Gordon out to open the batting with Lucas Hogan after winning the toss, and they were flying at 0-18 after just two overs with the assistance of some Tatts wides and no balls.

Gordon had gotten off the mark with a boundary and was on five runs when he was bowled by Jake Cooper in the third over as the Tatts opening bowler made the early breakthrough to make the score 1-18.

That became 2-34 in the fifth over when Hogan (9) was run out by Tatts’ skipper Jesse Packer, which quickly turned into 4-42 as Rod Kirk bowled Alan Whitmore (15) and Scott Smith (2) in the sixth over.

Those wickets left Chris Smith at the crease with John Lawlor, and the duo combined for Tourist Hotel’s best partnership of the day as they put on 56 runs together to guide their team towards triple digits.

Lawlor (16) was caught by Cooper in the Bentley Myers-bowled 14th over as the score became 5-98, and Smith lost Andrew Wallace (9) in the 16th over and then Andrew Harvey (11) in the 19th over before he and Jordan Bush saw out the innings as Tourist ended on 7-165.

Smith blasted seven sixes and three fours on his way to a season-high score of 75, and Bush scored three singles to end up unbeaten with three.

Myers (2-24 from four overs) was Tatts’ best with the ball, Kirk (2-30 from four overs) also finished with two wickets, and Packer (1-40 from four and a run out) and Cooper (1-14 from four overs) claimed a scalp each.

Tatts sent out Packer and Ryan Steel to open the batting in the second innings and they got off to a bright start as they ended the third over on 0-29.

However, Steel (4) was run out by Chris Smith in the fourth over and Packer (20) was caught by Scott Smith from the bowling of Wallace in the fifth over as the score became 2-30.

Tourist Hotel then dealt Tatts a double blow in the Scott Smith-bowled sixth over as Saad Kahn (4) was run out by Gordon and Smith knocked over Ed Currall (0) with the assistance of an Isaiah Cochrane catch to make the score 4-37.

Kirk and Campbell Hancock then steadied the ship for the chasing side with a 32-run partnership, in which Kirk did most of the scoring, but it was broken in the Harvey-bowled 12th over when the Tatts veteran was caught by Gordon for a team-best 27.

Harvey then bowled Taryn Kirk for a duck two balls later to make the score 6-69, and he made it 7-73 when he bowled Cooper for a duck in the 14th over.

Hancock’s patient innings came to an end in the 17th over when he was bowled by Bush for seven runs, and Jarrod Gould (1) followed in the 19th over when he was run out by Gordon.

Tourist threw the ball to Hogan for the final over of the match as they needed just one wicket to bring the contest to an end, and after being hit for a four from his first delivery,

Hogan got the job done as he bowled Brock Heideman (5) to help Tourist Hotel secure the 70-run victory.

Harvey (3-17 from three overs) was Tourist Hotel’s best with the ball, and his teammates Scott Smith (1-2 from two overs), Hogan (1-4 from 0.2 overs), Wallace (1-14 from two overs) and Bush (1-18 from four overs) all took one wicket each as the other three came from run outs.

Chris Smith earned the three best and fairest points, Harvey picked up two and Tatts’ Myers was awarded one.

Tourist Hotel will go in search of a third consecutive victory when they challenge the SignPrintStitch Colts for the first time this Saturday at Hogan Oval, and Tatts will be looking to bounce back from two losses when they meet defending champions RSL in a grand final rematch at Leitch Oval.