Local cricketers travel to the coast for representative duties

While the Narrabri District Cricket Association’s 2021-22 season endured a sixth consecutive washed out round on Saturday, three local cricketers headed to the coast for representative duties across the weekend.

Narrabri RSL Cricket Club‘s Nathan Trindall lined up for the Northern Inland Bolters at the Plan B Regional Bash tournament in Ballina while clubmate Bernard O’Connor and Tatts Cricket Club‘s Sid Harvey travelled to Sawtell and Grafton for the first three rounds of the Bradman Cup under-16s competition at which they competed for Central North.

Wee Waa’s Dylan Smith, a former Western Razorbacks quick who now plays for Old Boys in the Tamworth District Cricket Association first grade competition, was also picked in the Bolters team but was unable to travel due to flooding in the Narrabri Shire.

Both Country Cricket NSW events suffered rain-affected weekends.

Trindall and his Northern Inland Bolters teammates played their first of three scheduled matches in the annual T20 tournament on Saturday afternoon before their two Sunday matches were washed out.

The Bolters went down in a close contest in that tournament opener on Saturday.

They took on Coffs Coast Chargers and elected to bat first after winning the toss.

The Northern Inland men batted out the 20 overs and finished on 9-103 before going down by eight wickets after the chasing side reached the required total eight wickets down in 18.4 overs.

After he did not bat in the opening innings, Trindall finished with 0-18 from 3.4 overs in the second.

On Sunday, the Bolters’ round two and three matches against Macquarie Coast Stingers and Northern Rivers Rock, respectively, were both unable to begin after rain started to fall early that morning.

The other round one match was won by the Northern Rivers Rock, which downed the Stingers by 24 runs.

It is currently unknown whether or not the washed out matches will be replayed or a winner will be decided from the round one games.

At Sawtell on Saturday and Grafton on Sunday, Bernard and Sid’s Central North under-16s team played the first three rounds of the 2021-22 Bradman Cup campaign ahead of rounds four to seven which will be played at Lake Macquarie in January.

Central North took on Newcastle in the round one game on Saturday, which was a 50-over contest.

Newcastle batted first after winning the toss and made 133 runs before losing its final wicket in the second last over.

Sid picked up two wickets in that innings and finished with 2-9 from 3.4 overs. He also took a catch.

Bernard then starred with the bat in the second innings before rain saw the match cut short.

The RSL young gun opened for his Central North side and had reached a team-best 26 runs from 63 deliveries. He hit two boundaries during his time in the middle, which came to an end in the 18th over when rain began to fall.

Central North had reached 1-64 by that point which was enough to earn it a victory based on the Duckworth Lewis method.

Central North managed to complete both of its T20 matches in Grafton the following day in which it was downed by North Coastal in round two and Central Coast in round three. Bernard and Sid’s side went down by five wickets against North Coastal, then by 16 runs against Central Coast.

The side’s round four, five, six and seven matches at Lake Macquarie in January will all be 50-over contests.