Josh Attard stars in Tamworth Blues 16s finals victory

Chasing Tamworth’s 111, Armidale looked on target to claim the Tim Grosser Cup at 3-79 at the second drinks break (34 overs).

Enter Attard. He bowled Kareena Dawson the second ball of his return over, and his next claimed the big wicket of Benji Marshall (27) and two balls later Hamish Biddle.

Jye Saxby was run out the next over as the home side lost 5-4 with Oscar Spinks bowling Nick Page the over before Attard came back into the attack.

Two overs later Armidale were all out for 94.

Attard was justifiably named man of the match.

“He was amazing,” co-coach Peter Mead said.

“He just bowled quick and full and targeted the stumps, and he was rewarded.”

He finished with 5-13 and reflected what was a brilliant team turnaround. They played outstanding cricket in the last session, Mead said.

“We had let ourselves down in the other two sessions with poor fielding and dropped catches,” he said.

He thought 111 was a pretty good score and said with their bowling attack they were quite confident at the start of Armidale’s innings.

The wicket wasn’t the easiest to score on with the outfield quite slow, although after all the rain on Saturday, Mead said it was a credit to Armidale association to still get a game on turf.

Lara Graham top-scored for the Blues with 18 followed by Mitchell Henderson with 15 while Daniel Stuart chipped in with a late, and valuable hand of 13.

“Lars (Lara Graham) really toughed it out opening the batting,” Mead said.

“She did a great job. She mightn’t have scored many runs but she gave us the opportunity to stay out longer to score more runs.”

They were also aided by some wayward bowling from the home side with extras making up 35 of their total. Fourteen of those were wides and 11 no-balls.