JARROD Chapman has been a Fire Brigade Cricket Club stalwart through and through over many years.
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Now in the twilight of his dedicated cricketing career he has been in and out of the Flames A grade side over the past couple of years.
But when he got the nod at the weekend to play in the sudden death semi-final against Tongala he certainly made the most of it.
In a few early overs on Sunday at Tongala he turned the semi-final on its head with a burst of four quick wickets from which the home side, chasing the Brigade’s first-day score of 8/193, never recovered.
His early victims were Tongala coach and main batting hope Daniel Coombs for nine, opener Jayden Tucker for one, Joshua Thurston for four and Elijiah Gillie for a duck.
When relieved at the bowling crease the first time he had taken 4/11 off eight overs and Tongala was well and truly on the ropes at 6/37.
When reintroduced to the attack he took another two wickets, including the scalp of Tongala’s top scorer, Adam Nunn, to finish with a match-winning 6/26 off 21 overs, including 12 maidens.
Nunn was the shining light in Tongala’s batting line-up with 44 off 165 deliveries.
He was the only Tongala batsman to make decent runs until Shannon Tucker with 27 and Travis Johnstone with 23 put up some late resistance with a ninth-wicket stand of 61 to get their side to a final score of 144 off 73.5 overs.
Fire Brigade’s innings on Saturday also had its moments.
After a 54-run opening stand of 54 between Daniel Kent (34) and Jesse Barker (28), a fighting unbeaten eighth-wicket stand between Ryan Thomson (45 not out) and Chris Eddy (19 not out) got the Flames to a competitive score.
Fire Brigade now meets its grand final conqueror from last year Rochester for the premiership this weekend at Tongala.
Needing to win its last two games to even make the finals, a Sean Williams-inspired Rochester stunned minor premier Moama to book its spot in the final.
Williams produced one of the great final knocks of the modern era, making the semi-final his own with an unbeaten 154.
He faced only 168 balls in his stellar knock, which included 21 fours.
He shared a match-winning third-wicket stand of 102 with Dylan Cuttriss (45), which ended with Rochester only two runs short of victory.
Williams strode to the crease when Rochester was 1/5 and was still there at the finish of the innings, fittingly hitting the winning run.
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