Narromine were looking to bounce back from a disappointing loss to Cobar a fortnight previously to regain some momentum in the competition and cement their place in the semis.

If Narromine could defeat Wellington by a hefty margin they could finish first and host the grand final.

Another loss, and if other results went against them, could have seen them drop out of contention altogether.

Narromine won the toss and with a deep batting line up, elected to bat.

Captain Kerr decided he had had enough of the Royal Hotel smack talk from the Krumb and sent him out to open the batting with DH.

DH fell early but Sambo surprised the playing group with his stout defence and flamboyant stroke making, eventually falling for 15 with Narromine’s score at 2/43.

Narromine’s middle order of Lachie Reid (41), Doug Potter (38) and Kale Bock (42) continued steadily throughout the morning building some good partnerships and getting the total to 6/194 in the 42nd over.

When Bock fell with the score on 206 Narromine lost 3 quick wickets to be scrambling at 9 for 207 with the prospect of being bowled out for a below par score.

The 10th wicket of Jakob Short (21no) and Farmer Lewis added a handy 22 to bring the score up to 229 to be all out in the 49th over.

The Narromine lads went into lunch extremely confident they had a defendable total on a slow outfield that would make Wellington work hard for their runs.

Narromine started well with ball in hand, with Bart Goodman picking up an early wicket to have the visitors at 1/14 but then lost a bit of concentration and shelled a couple of early chances.

Wellington were building a handy partnership leading into first drinks, but the skipper chucked the ball to Dan Holland and he was up to the task picking up a wicket either side of the break to have the Wello lads quickly on the back foot.

By the time he had finished he’d collected 4 wickets in 15 balls to have them reeling at 5 for 61.

However the visitors battled back with a 48 run partnership in a tough second session in hot conditions.

The second drinks break proved the catalyst again and with the Narromine boys refreshed they quickly took control again with some tight bowling from spinners Kerr (2/38 off 9) and Potter (2/33 off 6) making inroads to the tail.

When Bart (2/30 off 6.4) was thrown the ball to finish of the innings it took him 4 balls to do so. Narromine bowled the visitors out for 147.

Dan Holland was the best of the bowlers finishing with 4/24 off 8.

The win wasn’t quite enough for Narromine to leapfrog Wellington.

They’ll finish the round robin matches in second place and will host either Dubbo or Cobar in the semifinal on March 4 at Dundas Park.

Thanks must go to Jenny Reid and Steve Sambrook for cooking another fantastic BBQ lunch and as always to the Narromine USMC for their sponsorship of Narromine District Cricket.