TAMWORTH District Cricket Association president Richard Bullock was delighted with another great turnout to the Central North Invitational Cricket Carnival in Tamworth on the weekend.
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Northern Inland hosted teams from Mid North Coast, Hunter Valley and Scots College in Under 13, 14 and 16 age divisions.
The 12 teams complete their three-day carnival today.
The only dampener on the weekend was the vandalism of Riverside 2’s centre square during the week.
Bullock said the ground would be out of action for up to a month.
“Some inconsiderate idiots decided they would take to Riverside 2 to do some circle work,” Bullock said.
“The result is shattering.”
He said the vandalism had affected not only the weekend’s carnival but the regular Tamworth season starting this Saturday.
“This nice work, by thoughtless idiots now has this ground out for approximately a month,” he said.
“All the hard work by Jonesie (Adam Jones) and his crew at Riverside in the off season is a waste. Just disgusting, something has to be done.
“We lost the TRECC ground for a few weeks as well to the same thing. We are lucky that we have so many turf wickets but we will still have to push a few games onto synthetic.”
Tamworth Regional Council had promised bollards and cameras at Riverside to partition off the grounds and take footage of vandals and their cars.
Bullock said the carnival had not been affected.
“It always takes a fair bit of organising,” he said.
Northern Inland began its Under 16 carnival with a good 94-run win over Hunter Valley at Dick Edwards Oval on Saturday.
Toby Whale top scored with 64 for NI while AJ Pretorious (21) and Nick Willoughby (29) also made good runs.
Kieran Dennis (11no) and Jack Hannaford (12no) then combined in a late unbroken partnership with Hannaford hitting a six off the last ball of the innings to take his team to 8-194.
HV then fell for 100 with James Austin (3-21 off eight overs) and Jye Paterson (2-7) the pick of the NI bowlers.
Playing Scots College yesterday NI limited the Sydney school side to 7-145 with Hugo Patterson’s unbeaten 46 a highlight for the visitors.
Opening bowlers Jaiden Tasker and James McGowan were impressive, left armer Tasker, from Inverell, claiming 2-16 off his eight overs and McGowan, from Gunnedah but attending Farrer Memorial Agricultural High School, taking 2-21 off his eight overs.
NI then knocked over the run chase quickly, finishing 1-147 in the 25th overs after opener Jye Paterson (78) and Toby Whale (48no) had completed a good stand.
“Two good wins,” NI coach Chris Paterson said yesterday.
His side plays Mid North Coast today in their final game at Dick Edwards Oval.
Mid North Coast lost their first game when they replied to Scots Colleges’ 228 with 228 on Saturday and were “in the balance” with Hunter Valley yesterday.