'It's pretty crazy': Morrish goes on bowling rampage in over of madness

A devastating opening over of bowling from Orange City captain Ed Morrish in Saturday's Bathurst Orange Inter District Cricket clash at the Sportsground not only put the Redbacks chase in doubt but it even gave the Warriors the faintest chance of an unlikely outright win of their own.

However, Redbacks navigated the horror start to their second innings to chase down the target in the eighth over and lift themselves off the bottom of the BOIDC ladder.

It was a case of so close yet so far for the Orange side after the skipper took matters into his own hands with an opening over of madness.

The Orange City skipper considered declaring while still behind the follow on target just to try and force a result, but the team's second innings also didn't pan out the way he wanted.

His remarkable opening over in the Redbacks' second innings gave his side a glimmer of hope but it didn't last long.

Coming away with zero points from the game now leaves the Warriors in a precarious spot with one game left in the season.

"We really shot ourselves in the foot to be honest," Morrish said.

"It was a pretty poor effort and it really cost us. I'm not taking anything away from Bathurst City, they played a great game, but we've just lost outright to the team coming last.

"How are we supposed to think we can match it with the teams at the top when we're losing these games? Bathurst City played great, and if a few other results went their way this year it could have been different, and we didn't give them enough respect.

"It puts us in a tough spot for the last round. If City Colts win then it means whoever loses out of us and St Pat's will miss out on finals."

Jed Cruickshank was the star performer for Redbacks, scoring 76 of his team's first innings total of 236, before he picked up two wickets in his opening two overs of the Warriors' second innings (ultimately finishing with 3-31).

Orange City could only muster up 153 in their first innings, with Redbacks' Clint Moxon taking 5-61, and then added 132 in their second innings.

The opening weekend's big effort with the bat was already enough to leave Cruickshank satisfied but picking up key wickets in Orange City's second innings made it something special for him.

Cruickshank was stoked to put together such a complete performance.

"It's a great result for us, to be sitting at the bottom of the ladder and then get a win like that," he said.

"I haven't really scored a lot of runs this year, or taken many wickets for that matter, so it was nice to pick up a few of those."

It's a bittersweet win in a sense for the Redbacks, who will feel that this standard of cricket could have put themselves in finals contention had it arrived earlier in the season.

"The energy around the group is definitely good at the moment. A result like this was the last thing that we were expecting. It's pretty crazy," Cruickshank said.

"We've had probably two or three games that were winnable where we came up short, whether it was a batting collapse or a couple of key wickets that we missed out on."

CYMS was already in a good space heading into day two of this clash at Wade Park thanks to an impressive run haul of 277.

Rugby got off to a good start however with openers Imran Qureshi and Hugh Taylor putting on 32 and 26 respectively.

From there however the next highest core was a 37 from Flynn Taylor as CYMS picked off the middle order and then dismissed the last four batters for a combined score of six.

Joey Coughlan took 4-63 while Rory Daburger chimed in with an impressive 3-29 off 16 overs as Rugby was bowled out for 160.

A five wicket haul from City Colts' Dave Henderson helped bring his side victory on Saturday and has kept the club within striking distance of a top four finish.

Henderson took 5-36 off 19 overs (including eight maidens) at Loco Oval to restrict St Pat's Old Boys to 9-190 in their pursuit of Colts' 259.

A strong middle order stand between brothers Ben (55 runs) and Hugh (45 runs) Parsons kept Pat's in the hunt but restrictive bowling from the home side meant time soon got away from the Saints.

It was the in-form Colts pairing of Russ Gardner (64) and Dan Casey (61) who did the work with the bat.

Ben Sennett (3-12) was the pick of the St Pat's bowlers.