Bellarine Cricket Association suffered a calamitous batting collapse on day two of Melbourne Country Week against Hamilton District at Hoppers Crossing on Tuesday February 14.
The BPCA batted first and was 1/115 with Simon Umbers recovering from a slow start to make 35 and Jan Juc’s Luke Edwards getting 36.
Inverleigh young gun Jasper George then accelerated the innings to a commendable 2/188 and a score of well in excess of 250 was looking likely.
But George fell for a superb 79 and BPCA lost 8/22 and fell for 216 all out from just 44 overs with only Ed Morrison (27) looking likely.
The reintroduction of Hamish Cook and Henry Bensch into the attack paid off for Hamilton with both bowlers snaring four wickets each.
Still, the total wasn’t a small one, but BPCA would need early wickets to win the game.
That never happened.
Simon Sharrock took the game away from the Pirates with a swashbuckling 102 and fellow opener Simon Close scored 36 before being run out by Umbers.
Sharrock and Close took 24 from the second over of the innings to set up the successful run chase.
Morrison picked up a wicket to have Hamilton 2/169 in the 28th over, still needing 48 for victory.
When Sharrock was stumped by Edwards off Morrison, Hamilton was 3/187 with 20 overs to bat and Bellarine needed a monumental collapse to pull off a miracle.
Bailey Le Maistre struck in his first over, but by then Hamilton needed only eight for victory, which it achieved without further loss.
Morrison capped off a good game with 3/57 from 10 overs and 27 with the bat to go with 2/46 and 61 on Monday to be Bellarine’s player of the week so far.
Bellarine faces Wangaratta & District at Donald McLean Reserve in Spotswood today before a bye on Thursday.
It must win tomorrow to have any chance of playing in Friday’s final.
