Sweet relief for Iona/Koo wee rup

Sunday saw the Iona/Koo wee rup veterans take home a thrilling two-wicket win over Vic Country in round 11 of the Veterans Cricket Victoria over 60s.

Playing host at the Iona Cricket Oval, Iona/Koo wee rup began the day with Bill Neaves volunteering to play for the opposition as they only had 10 players.
Vic Country won the toss and batted as Jim Geltch and Chris Guthrie opened the batting before a mix-up in the third over saw Guthrie (4 from 12) run out.

By the 11th over Jim Geltch (13 off 30) had retired before David Booth (6 from 15) was caught by Scott Williams off the bowling of Graham Davey and Vic Country were 2/27.
Thirteen runs later Greg Bailey (12 from 10) was caught by Greg Watsford off Scott Williams' bowling.

At the halfway mark (20 overs) Vic Country were 3/52. Two overs later they were 4/58 when Neaves (5 from 21) was lbw to the bowling of Mick Scully.
Peter Lawford (5 from 31), Allan Dennis (11 from 30) and Ned Raven retired before Ivan Bell (1 from 9) was bowled by Mick Scully.

The next two wickets fell to Mick Scully's bowling: Bill Mackay (8 off 27) bowled and John Thomas (5 from 25) caught by Andrew Patterson.
After 40 overs Vic Country finished with 7/102 with the not out batsmen Jim Geltch (15 from 32) and Allan Dennis (16 from 34).

All the Iona/Koo wee rup bowlers toiled excellently: Mick Scully 8-4/20, Graham Davey 8-1/16, Scott Williams 5-1/23, Andrew Patterson 8-0/11, Greg Watsford 8-0/19, Ross Farmer 2-0/6 and man of the match Ron Wernke 1-0/4.

Iona/Koo wee rup opened their own batting with Ron Wernke and Andrew Parker but, on the 10th ball of the innings, Parker, in attempting to hit the ball to fine leg, hit David Booth (the wicketkeeper) in the head - he was not wearing a helmet.

Booth was helped from the ground and took no further part in the game. He was reportedly fine after the match, with just a "mild" headache.
This unfortunate incident had an effect on Parker because with the score on two in the third over, he was out for his second duck in his past two games. This time it took him 13 balls before he was caught by Bill Mackay off the bowling of John Thomas.

Ron Wernke (12 from 20) retired before Rick Savage (11 from 14) was run out.
Yet another mix-up in running between wickets saw Bob Rogers (2 off 10) run out and Iona/Koo wee rup were 3/27 in the 11th over.

Andrew Patterson (11 off 20) had retired before the score had reached 48 in the 17th over, when Iona/Koo wee rup lost three wickets for five runs in six overs.
Scott Williams (10 off 23) bowled by Greg Bailey, Mick Scully (0 off 4) caught by Allan Dennis and Russell Ferguson (4 off 11) caught by sub (Andrew Parker).
At 20 overs Iona/Koo wee rup score was 50 runs, which was two runs short of Vic Country's score at the same stage.

Mick Parsons (1 from 20), Ross Farmer (7 from 20) and Graham Davey (9 from 20) had retired before Greg Watsford (3 from 14) was caught by Chris Guthrie off the bowling of Jim Geltch, the score was 7/81 in the 32nd over. Iona/Koo wee rup needed only 22 runs off 42 balls.

John Moore and Ron Wernke took the total to 96 in the 36th over before John Moore (6 from 20) was caught by Allan Dennis off the bowling of Greg Bailey.
Andrew Patterson (13 off 25) joined Ron Wernke (25 from 29) and they took the total to 8/105 after 37.4 overs.

Vic Country bowling: Jim Geltch 8-3/12, Greg Bailey 8-2/16, John Thomas 7-1/22, Allan Dennis 8-0/26, Bill Mackay 5-0/18 and Ivan Bell 1.4-0/5.
This was a very exciting game that went down to the wire and gave Iona/Koo wee rup their first win for 12 months.
This Sunday Iona/Koo wee rup face close town rivals Baw Baw at Hallora.