Armidale Cricket: Hillgrove batsmen fire to bring their season back to life

After three losses on the trot, Hillgrove were searching to get their season back on track and they did so in formidable style.

The much-talked about long batting line-up in the Hillgrove ranks finally sparked to life and delivered a 241-run total against City on Saturday. 

Stand-in skipper Brad King found form with a knock of 86 while Andrew Brownlie chimed in with 54. 

“I don't know about form, I don't know if I have ever got form but it was nice to get a few runs,” King said. 

“I hit a few in the air and got dropped a few times but that is the way I bat. If they are good enough to catch it, they catch it. But if they don't I try and score a few more.”

Matt Baillie and Will Waterson began the innings before departing in quick succession. 

Will Archer left on eight and then the two veterans stepped up. 

“The other thing was we actually had an opening partnership,” King said. 

“We had 35 runs on the board and considering we have only scored 100 in our last three gigs we were well on our way to scoring more than 100.”

With a comfortable total on the board, the Hillgrove bowlers set about defending it.

Sean Skinner claimed three wickets, Liam Neeson and Max Laurie two each and Dick Heagney and Josh Croft managed one as City finished on 9-129 from 43 overs, handing Hillgrove the win. 

“Full credit to them [City], we didn't bowl them out but I was a bowler short really,” King said. 

“I didn't have [Andrew] Curry there, I didn't have Schaef [Matt Schaefer] there so I just bowled all the bowlers we had and then I had to bowl Josh Croft and Dick got a few overs. Everyone bowled well, Neeson is coming along nicely, Skinner has sort of been a bit of a backbone to our bowling and Max is just very hard to get away when he is bowling well.”