Lancaster Park completes clean sweep of senior cricket contest

Press, 29 March 1982, Page 17

Lancaster Park completes clean sweep of senior cricket contest

Not without some batting hiccups, Lancaster Park on Saturday completed a clean sweep of the senior cricket competitions.

In beating Old Collegians by four wickets for the A.N.Z. Bank Cup, which was at stake in the one-day competition, Lancaster Park added the cup to its haul of other titles: the twilight competition, the knock-out competition, and the senior championship itself. Dave Dempsey said that much of the reason for his side’s successes — its only outright loss was to EastShirley before Christmas — lay in the ability of the early batsmen to score their runs quickly and in profusion: the captain himself; his opening partner, Tony Collins; and the No. 3. Rod Latham, between them totalled nearly 1500 runs. ( Dempsey said, “This gave us time to enforce outright decisions.” But the key to the overwhelming successes lay in the form of David Trist. The former New Zealand

medium-pacer advanced his haul of wickets to an astonishing 81 on Saturday,' a figure exceeded only four times in the history of senior cricket, and again it was Trist who provided the early thrust. Old Collegians were sent in by Dempsey and, on the dew-freshened pitch, Trist and his supporters, Wayne Wilson and Trevor Luke, quickly had the Old Collegians batsmen in the batting horrors. There was seam aplently in the pitch, and Trist looked as if he could bowl all day on it and reap suitable rewards. But it was Dempsey who enjoyed the startling bowling figures. He has had a season to remember, winning the Roger Blunt Memorial Trophy, for the most runs in the season after major challenges from Collins and John Larter (St Albans) late in this last day; and he took 31

cheap wickets to boot, "bowling on a few dungheaps.” This mopping up process left Lancaster Park with what appeared to be a simple task, and Dempsey sent it on its way with his brisk 20. Then Collins and 'Latham appeared so comfortable that Old Collegians looked unlikely to take a further wicket. But Latham became overly pre-occupied with reaching his 500 runs for the season and, forsaking his natural aggression, failed to do so. Collins had his own pre-occupation, that of reaching 43 and heading off Dempsey — he too failed. So it took some eminently sensible batting from Roy Gearry and Michael Johnston to steer Lancaster Park to its win, although not before Graham Sercombe, not even a part-time bowler and coming on when Lancaster Park needed but two runs with six

wickets in hand, had taken two wickets at the end. Although the batting was hardly worthy of a championship final, there was much fine bowling and the fielding by both teams was first-class, with Johnston setting the highest standard. Scores: OLD COLLEGIANS G. N. Sercombe c Johnston b Luke 8 S. W. Sansom 'bw b Trist . 13 V. R. Brown run out 0 P. E. McEwan c Gearry b Luke 12 R. G. Wilson lbw b Dempsev 10 G. R. Wright b Trist 0 R. A. Fuller run out 36 R. I. Leggat b Dempsey . . 10 D. J. Templeton b Dempsey. 7 C. W. H. Lawrence lbw b Dempsey 6 L. J. Forde not out 1 Extras (b 7. IbB. nbl) 16 Total 119 Bowling.—D. G. Trist 15. 5. 30.

2. T. E. Luke 18, 7, 41. 2: W. A. Wilson 7,2. 15. 0; D. A. Dempsev 13.5, 5, 17. 4. LANCASTER PARK A. E. Collins c Forde b McEwan 40 D. A. Dempsey c Sansom b Forde 20 R. T. Latham b Wilson ... 16 G. L. Kench c Lawrence b Brown 9 R. M. Gearry c Brown b Sercombe’ . . . 12 M. T. Johnston not out .. . 16 B. A. Kench b Sercombe . . 0 W. R. Wilson not out ... . 0 Extras (b2. Ib3, nb2) 7 Total (for 6 wkts) 120 Bowling—R. G. Wilson 12. 3. 34. 1: L. J. Forde 16. 7. 42. 1; P. E. McEwan 4. 1,6, 1: C. W. H. Lawrence 2. 1. 9,0; V. R. Brown 5,2. 26, 1: R. A. Fuller 2.4. 1. 6,0; G. N. Sercombe 2.2. 0. 2. Umpires: Mr R. L. McHarg and Mr B. L. Aldridge.