Mudgee emerged victorious by 14 runs over the Cobar Cowboys in a tight Western Zone Plate final one-day match at Dubbo’s Victoria Park No 1 Oval on Sunday.
Despite a strong fightback from the Cowboys, who came close to pulling off a mammoth 252 run chase, Mudgee’s all-round performance and Cobar’s ill discipline with the ball ultimately proved to be the difference, with the Cowboys finishing their chase at 9/237 in reply to Mudgee’s 6/251.
Mudgee batted first and posted a competitive total of 6/251 from their 50 overs.
Steven Knight was the standout performer, playing a crucial knock of 94.
Supporting him was Mitchell Hearn, who contributed a valuable 46 runs.
Despite a mini-collapse in the middle overs, due to an excellent middle session from Cobar’s bowlers James McClure (1/20) and Nicola Harbison (1/39), who managed to restrict the Mudgee batter to only 50 runs in the middle session, Mudgee however finished strongly, with a total helped significantly by 51 extras.
In reply, the Cobar Cowboys faced a challenging target of 252.
The chase began disastrously with the early dismissal of Tom McKenna for a duck, but then Jake Harbison provided a strong counterattack.
Harbison played a brilliant knock of 93 runs off 115 balls, including nine boundaries and one six, keeping the Cowboys in the hunt for much of the chase.
Contributions from Jay Egan (26 off 44 balls) and Niduka Gunawardana (33 off 55 balls) kept the scoreboard ticking over, but Mudgee’s bowlers were relentless in their pursuit of wickets.
The key moment came when Knight, (who took four wickets for 40 runs), dismissed Harbison in a crucial caught and bowl.
He also claimed the wickets of Aravinth Naguleswarampillai, James McClure, and Anthony Mitchell.
Despite a late surge from Alec Fraser (who finished with 11 not out off 16 balls) and Ryan Urquhart (9 not out off 11), the Cowboys fell short of the target, finishing their innings at 9/237.
In the end, Mudgee’s combined efforts with both the bat and ball proved too much for the Cobar Cowboys, who, despite a valiant effort led by Harbison, fell just 14 runs short.
Mudgee’s victory sees them build momentum in the Western Zone competition, while the Cowboys will look to regroup and bounce back in their next match.
It’s a busy summer schedule for Cobar’s representative cricket side and the Cowboys will be back on the Ward Oval pitch this Sunday.
Cobar takes on Bourke in the semi final of the Brewery Shield competition, with the winner to play Dubbo in the final.—contributed
