A BRILLIANT innings from Josh Clarke saw him set a new record for Hawkesbury Cricket Club and deliver a huge upset to Sutherland in grade cricket.
Clarke’s 188 not out broke the previous highest score for a Hawkesbury batsman in first grade, set by Alan Mitchell, who made 179 in the 1991-92 season.
Clarke led the Hawkesbury run chase to a huge upset over Sutherland, which was tied for first place in first grade until its loss to Hawkesbury in round 13 of the NSW Premier Cricket competition.
After some great bowling from the Hawkesbury team saw Sutherland bowled out for 316 on the first day of the match. Clarke took three wickets on the first day, to add to his man of the brilliance with the bat.
His 233 ball innings took over five hours, and during that span he hit 15 boundaries and two sixes to post 188 not out.
It was Clarke’s third century of the season. In round two he posted 159 and in round six he made 103.
Clarke has the fourth most runs in first grade this season, with 787 after the weekend’s performance. His average is 65.58.
Last year, he had the second most runs in first grade with 881 at 73.42 and a high score of 162.
It was the fourth win in five matches for first grade, which seems to have found some rhythm late in the season.
Meanwhile, Hawkesbury did well in the lower grades too, winning in second grade and fourth grade.
It was not easy for second grade, but they got the job done, winning by two wickets.
No batsman was able to reach the half-century mark for Hawkesbury, but a number of handy innings saw them reach 8-271.
Chaitnya Sharma, 32, and Tim Wilson, 23, opened up the batting. Eknoor Singh came in at number three to score 41, followed by Kerrod Gordon who made 44.
Kain Flynn-Duncombe, 35, and Chris Lawrence, 30, had two much needed lower order innings to help the team reach the target.
Third grade came close to Sutherland’s 207, but fell short on 187.
Matt Williams made 65 in the chase, but no other batsmen were able to get going.
Fourth grade bowled Sutherland out for 34 on day one, and then Pat Muller declared at 8-156. Sutherland came in and batted out the day, reaching 5-136.
In fifth grade, they well well short of the required total of 201, only scoring 136.
Hawkesbury has retained eighth spot on the club championship ladder, with 966 points.
In the penultimate round of the regular season, Hawkesbury will play Western Suburbs.
