After Monday’s opening match defeat against Griffith University, the West Coast Rollers bounced back in fine fashion on Wednesday, beating another Australian side in Trinity Tigers by 39 runs.
Once again it was our batting which let us down on Monday, but it was a case of ‘lesson learnt’ against the team of New South Wales.
Batting first on a wicket which offered a fair bit, the Rollers got of to a great start as Hannes Carlson and Claude Louw set up an opening stand of 77, with both players retiring on the mandatory 35.
Ryan Cooper joined the party and added an unbeaten 35 as well, but then a mini-collapse as Neville Cooper was bowled third ball, Darren MacGurk was stumped for 5 and Jacques Laubscher bowled for 15.
Step up the most unlikeliest of heroes: George Kamfer, on the back of five successive ducks, set about the bowling with some vigour, powering his way to an unbeaten 35 as well.
Hannes Engelbrecht (10), Jakes Oberholzer (5), Stuart Bruce (13) and Andrew Young (13) all contributed before losing their wickets, meaning the previous not out batsmen returned to the wicket.
That didn’t go so well, with Casper and George falling as Steve Armstrong took three wickets in the final over to leave the Rollers at 228/9 after 40 overs.
The Tigers got off to a solid start, with Woodburg and Fitzgerald taking the score to 43 before Claude (3-20) took the first of his wickets.
Another 32-run stand got them to 75/1 before a collapse took them to 102/5, with Claude getting two more, Scooter getting one, as did Neville, who also took a blinder at short cover.
Gilbert scored a quick 42 not out, but the target was also going to be too much, especially with Andrew running through the lower order with figures of 3-21 in seven overs.
So an easy enough victory for the Rollers, and once again a great time was had afterwards with Mike Bush and his team – a truly brilliant bunch of guys. Hopefully we can one day take them up on that offer of playing at their home ground.
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