TROY Osborne went from destroyer to saviour at No.1 Oval on Saturday.
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After claiming 5-8 to help South Tamworth rip through City United for 115, Osborne salvaged Souths’ hopes of first innings points with an unbeaten half-century.
On the back of his performance they scrambled to 6-83 at stumps with Osborne unbeaten on 53 after bringing up his half-century with two balls to go.
It was a huge effort from the opener in the sweltering conditions.
He was out there from the first ball of the day to the last.
Things didn’t start well for City with Nigel Parkinson picking up Lachlan Cooke with just three on the board and two runs later running out in-form Richie O’Halloran.
Two for five then became 3-25 with Jamie Hammond chiming in.
“Nigel and Hammo opened up well,” stand-in Souths’ skipper Nick Leyden said.
Captain Simon Toyer (52) and Ben Semmler (8) dug in and steadied things for City with a 49-run stand before Semmler became Hammond’s second scalp.
Then it became the Osborne show.
“Ozzie came on and bowled beautifully,” Leyden said.
“He was fantastic today.”
More noted as a spinner these days, Osborne reverted to pace.
He was unplayable at times and at one stage had 4-1.
“He was sharp,” Toyer said.
With the dry conditions the track was pretty dead Leyden said, but Osborne was “able to get a bit out of it”, adding that it was pretty entertaining.
It always is – batsmen getting wickets.
Osborne then went out and held Souths’ innings together.
“He batted beautifully,” he said.
It was slow going at times.
Semmler and Tait Jordan bowled brilliantly early.
They really constrained the scoring.
“Tait, that spell is the best I’ve seen him bowl,” Toyer said.
“And Benny backed him up.”
They bowled the first 16 between them for only 30 runs with Jordan nabbing 2-7 and Semmler 1-17 (he finished 1-37).
After slumping to 4-38 Osborne and Hammond looked like they could take Souths through to stumps but then with about five overs to go Hammond was adjudged lbw trying to sweep Peter Mead.
Parkinson was then out lbw to Mead (2-9) in the second last over.
“It was a shame to lose that many wickets,” Leyden said.
“In saying that I thought City bowled well.”
They only had 10 for the day to bat after Ethan Sherlock didn’t turn up, but Leyden was able to juggle it to save James Psarakis, Sam McHugh and Tom Groth for next week.
“We’ve got a bit of work to do,” he said.
“They’ll have Jack (McVey) back.”
Toyer also mentioned McVey and felt they were probably on top.
“The damage is done but they’ve got a couple of good bats to come back,” he said.
The story for them was “just not enough runs.”
Toyer was the shining light and said he thought he and Semmler had started to “steer the ship back in the right direction a little bit”.
But then Hammond bowled Semmler and seven runs later Toyer got a full toss from Osborne and fell to the same fate.
City’s innings folded pretty quickly after that with only Tom Fitzgerald (16) reaching double figures.