Wodonga Raiders came back from the dead three times on Saturday to post successive wins for the first time since rejoining provincial six years ago.
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Raiders were 7-46 on a difficult home wicket against Tallangatta, but squeezed out 131 with Nick Bracher (35) and Greg Roberts (20) hitting their highest scores of the season in a 54-run stand.
The Bushies were cruising at 0-39 and then 6-113, but lost 4-2 as 'golden arm' Tom Bracher snared 3-0.
Bracher also claimed the final wicket when Raiders snapped a 26-match losing streak against premiers North Albury last month.
"(Jonathan Carso) 'Carso' had finished his 10 overs and I thought about bringing Will Noonan back on, but the spinners had proven so hard to get away, so I put Tom Bracher on and it was similar to the North Albury game," delighted captain Leigh Clarke said.
Clarke's bold decision to bat backfired when Riverina quick Fraser Ellis, Englishman Matt Oswell and Indian import Sahib Malhotra, in his first game for 12 months, tore through Raiders.
"If I'm going to make a mistake I'd rather make it on the side of batting, rather than bowling, but when we were 7-40 odd, I thought I wouldn't mind revisiting the toss," Clarke said.
"But the pitch settled down a little bit, the ball got soft and Nick Bracher and 'Dutchy' Roberts put on 50-odd and Jesse's 37 (number seven Jesse Griffiths) really got us into the game, the game was really over until our tail wagged."
The ball got soft and Nick Bracher and 'Dutchy' Roberts put on 50-odd and Jesse's 37 (number seven Jesse Griffiths) really got us into the game, the game was really over until our tail wagged.
- Leigh Clarke
Ellis finished with 4-26, while Raiders couldn't come to grips with Malhotra's leg-spin (3-16 from 10 overs) on a wicket which played unpredictably for the first 90 minutes, in particular.
Bushies' openers Phil Neville and Oliver Willett looked like taking the game away from Raiders until Will Noonan (2-14) changed the match.
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"For a 15-year-old, he bowls at a reasonable pace, he's not super quick by any stretch, he bowls stump to stump and gets the odd one to swing away," Clarke said.
"The pitch was starting to keep low and if the medium-pacers bowled stump to stump, they were going to be hard to play, he got Neville out lbw and bowled Malhotra for a duck."
The dismissal of Malhotra, who only arrived in the country on Friday, was critical as he was the best batsman when he left last summer.
Oswell top-scored with 26, but a direct hit from Nick Bracher kick-started the Bushies' late collapse.
