AARON Hazlewood will win the Tamworth first grade best and fairest award for season 2014-15, despite playing limited matches in a season wrecked by poor pitches.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The Old Boys allrounder showed his brilliance two Saturdays ago.
After topscoring for Old Boys with 45 in a score of 156, he then took 6-15 against South Tamworth to leave them on their knees.
His teammates delivered the coup de grace the following Saturday, routing South for 65 and then 137 before making 0-48 for a big outright win.
The win took Old Boys back to the top of the ladder with just one round to play while Hazlewood harvested the three points for his first-day display.
The young allrounder, who works in a mine near Nyngan, cannot play every weekend but has managed his time brilliantly and was part of Old Boys’ Coalboard Cup win last Sunday as well.
His Old Boys club can finish minor premiers this weekend if they run down Bective-East’s 157 today.
Old Boys are 1-30 in reply.
Hazlewood went wicketless (0-12 off nine overs) but then belted 20 (27 balls) opening with Adam Lole.
While he won’t poll any points from this game, he already has 14 best and fairest points for the season and sits four points ahead of his skipper, Ben Middlebrook, and City United allrounder Ben Semmler.
Both have had big seasons too, Middlebrook claiming 10 wickets last weekend (five for Old Boys against Bective and five more against Cessnock in the Coalboard Cup success) while Semmler took 3-29 against North but is already back in the pavilion for City, who resume at 6-23 chasing 156.
City’s only hope is to pull an outright victory out of the bag to stay in finals contention, with South looking to do just that against Wests at Dick Edwards and leapfrog them back into fourth.
At No 1 Oval, only a Bective victory can rob Old Boys of the minor premiership and hand it to North, while the Bulls will finish safely in third regardless of results in theirs or other games.
