A BOWLER-DOMINATED round has teams under threat of conceding outright losses as Warrnambool and District Cricket Association heavyweights flex their muscles.
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Second-placed Russells Creek tore through West Warrnambool, with six wickets from Izzy Yaddehige restricting the Panthers to just 54 on Saturday at Davidson Oval.
Merrivale was also lethal with ball-in-hand, dismissing Wesley-CBC for just 65 courtesy of four wickets from paceman Sean Fary.
Tigers co-captain Josh Stapleton said Fary executed a plan to snare early wickets and swung the ball to his advantage.
“He bowled a nice area with some good swing and managed to get some early nicks,” Stapleton said.
“Quick wickets are always your aim but to have them five down at drinks, it was probably a little more than we expected.
“We just bowled in the right areas and hit our marks well.”
The talented batsman said he wasn’t yet eyeing an outright but would look to build a lead when play resumed at Merrivale Oval on Saturday.
“We’ll sort of focus on how we establish a lead first off, and then look to build from there,” Stapleton said.
“We’ll have to weigh it up when we’re batting next week and see how we go about it.”
Russells Creek coach Jayaweera Bandara lauded Yaddehige’s breakthrough performance as his best of the season.
“It was a good effort because he was taken to hospital exactly a week before from the same ground,” Bandara said.
“He just bowled in the right areas. He’s made an effort to bowl fuller and straighter.
“He’s still been bowling well but hasn't been getting the wickets. We’ve just worked on bowling full and it’s paid off for him.”
Bandara said his charges emphasised the need to remove West Warrnambool’s top four early.
“We knew that they have three or four top batsmen and we thought if we could get them we’d run through the middle order,” he said.
“We had a similar approach in the one-day grand final and we knew we’d have to get early wickets when they won the toss and decided to bat.”
Elsewhere, Port Fairy is hopeful reigning association cricketer of the year Jason Perera can return to his best to inspire its pursuit of Dennington’s 128-run total.
Perera is unbeaten at the crease with youngster Travis Parsons after the Pirates bowlers shared the wicket-taking spoils through their ranks.
