Tallangatta and Wodonga have posted a rare tie after a bizarre finish in which the fielder couldn’t see the ball in the sun as it dribbled across the boundary.
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Tallangatta needed five runs from the final ball for victory when Byron Hales Hales bowled to Greg McGillivray.
“Greg tugged the ball to the leg-side, it came off the toe of the bat and he didn’t hit it super hard,” Tallangatta coach Matt Armstrong said.
“The sun was in the eyes of Beau Kennedy at fine leg and everyone was screaming at him and he couldn’t see the ball.”
Wodonga captain Jack Craig said nobody blamed Kennedy.
The sun was in the eyes of Beau Kennedy at fine leg and everyone was screaming at him and he couldn’t see the ball.
- Matt Armstrong
“In Tallangatta, the sun was at the land level, so when you were looking at the batsman, the sun was right behind him,” he said.
“The ball got down to him and went past him about 20 metres away, but he didn’t move.”
The result capped an outstanding match in which 506 runs were scored from the 100 overs.
The visitors batted first and made 253 with the top six all making 25 or more.
“We needed that one person to go on, we were probably 40 runs short,” Craig said.
“The back end of our innings wasn’t very good, but Tallangatta bowled really well.”
Craig suffered a back injury prior to the game and couldn’t bowl, while he was also forced to ‘hide’ in the field.
“I don’t know what I’ve done, it’s just not very good at the moment, I’m struggling this morning (Sunday),” he said.
Craig made 25 at number three, with hard-hitting opener Andrew Weighell top-scoring for the second successive match with 40.
Brett Allan bowled superbly to finish with 3-43.
“He was actually pretty brave, he gave it a lot of flight and that’s probably where they came unstuck, they tried to go hard and hit sixes and fours,” Armstrong said.
In his first CAW game since last November, ex-Sri Lankan international Dilhara Lokuhettige bowled well in taking 1-48, receiving some late punishment.
Armstrong posted another half-century – 83 – in an opening stand of 123 with Curtis Stephens.
But the Bushies then lost 3-1 with slow bowlers Weighell and James Tonkin drying up the runs, before Nathan Thompson and Lokuhettige (41) posted 55 runs for the fifth wicket.
“The ball went really soft so it was hard to hit down the ground and over the top, so Dilhara just started sweeping everybody and he hit a couple of reverse sweeps,” Armstrong said.
A 35-run stand for the eighth wicket between Thompson and youngster Lachie Paton proved crucial before the classy Thompson was dismissed.
Paton and McGillivray then needed seven from the final two balls for the win with the veteran hitting two over cover before stealing the unlikely tie.
