FLANELLED FOOLS: 14 JANUARY 2017

Fire comes to the rescue of Telegraph

My, how quickly things can change. Early this morning, Molong Online — along with just about everyone else — had forecast a forfeit by Telegraph in today’s cricket match against Country.

Then, virtually at the last minute, came the news that Telegraph had scrambled together a team and would at least be fronting up to Molong’s Hunter Caldwell Oval, thereby saving the club from the ignominy of having to forfeit and also salvaging at least the three competition points garnered from losing on the field.

And with Country sitting on 3-171 after 30 overs that looked about as good as it was going to get for Telegraph ... until one of the Country players received a call about a fire on a property at Kerrs Creek and more than half the side left to help fight it.

Andrew Heath was in top form, having accumulated 104 not out.

The result? A win by forfeit to Telegraph.

Meanwhile, Magpies squandered a very solid start against Cudal to go down convincingly.

Cudal recovered from being 5-25 to end up scoring 191 before dismissing Magpies for 133.

For Cudal, there were solid scores of 72 from L Cornish, 43 from A Smith and 30 from P Tattersalls, while good bowling returns of 3-11 and 3-21 were recorded by C Douglas and C Gosper.

Top scorers for Magpies were J Evans (35) and Brett Johnson (42), while best bowling figures were returned by J Evans (4-25) and M Christie (3-54).

Today’s results leave the competition much tighter than expected after nine rounds.

Country remains clearly on top and is destined for minor premiership, Cudal moves into outright second, while Magpies and Telegraph are tied for third and fourth.

Next Saturday sees a general bye in the competition, but the week after that (Saturday 28 January) Cudal plays Country and on form should register a loss.

Meanwhile, the clash between Magpies and Telegraph will be crucial since the winner will most likely join Cudal in equal second while the loser will slip to outright fourth — and outside the top three sides which will proceed into the finals series.