Jarrod Simpson is chipping away at teammate John Colwell’s lead to be the highest run maker in Dubbo first grade cricket after a match winning innings of 90 against Newtown.
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The Souths’ all-rounder has been arguably the most consistent batsman in the senior grades this season and after five half centuries (60, 59, 69, 60, 90) he has 421 runs to trail Colwell (481) by 60.
Only three times has Simpson failed to make double figures.
In the game that finished on Saturday, Newtown had some hopes to break through for their first win of the season with Souths resuming on 0-15 in reply to the Newtown first innings of 171.
Newtown all-rounder Matt Skinner said before the start of play that the key to any hope they had was to get rid of key Souths’ batsmen - Colwell, Simpson and Tim Berry.
Colwell wasn’t a problem, Chris Lenord knocked him over for eight; but Berry (28) got a start before he lost his wicket to Steve Skinner. But they didn’t have the same fortune with Simpson’s wicket.
As usual his timing was superb and while he has a habit of hitting the ball to the fieldsmen he persevered and the runs eventually came for his highest score of the season. He was credited with five 4s and three 6s.
He came in at the fall of Tony Winmill’s wicket in the 16th over and was out 55 overs later, just 10 runs short of a well-deserve century.
This time it was Matt Skinner who held the catch off Lenord’s bowling.
And while Souths batted till near stumps for their 247 in total, nothing can be taken away from Lenord’s bowling.
He finished with his best Whitney Cup figures of 6-66 from 14.5 overs and when you consider his haul included the wickets of Simpson, Colwell and Matt Finlay (56), it was certainly a fitting reward.
While Simpson continues to go about his work with success, Matt Finlay’s batting is still up and down although his half-century on Saturday was quality stuff.
Finlay and Simpson batted superbly for a third wicket partnership of 102 after Finlay hit three 4s and two 6s.
One ‘easy’ wicket for Newtown came before a ball was bowled on Saturday after not out batsman Paul Jones Snr (8) was not there on time for the resumption and was duly ‘timed out.’
