Needing a quick five wickets to place themselves in a position to maximise points through an outright win, Muddies Green set about their task with a very strong bowling line up.

Sorensen, who was recently selected in a zone junior representative side, gave the team a great start with a wicket second ball, and Butters bowled three consecutive maidens building the pressure for Sorensen to finish with another wicket, figures of 5/31 off 13.

Subbed into the side, peak bowler Smith chimed in with a 2.5 over spell 2/5 to have Barron River all out for 106.

The Skipper’s instruction was to quickly add about 50 runs to their lead of 74, allowing two hours to bowl out Barron River again.

An absolute flurry of wickets saw Muddies Green compile 38 runs in quick time to achieve the objective and Barron River were handed a generous target of just 113 to win the game for themselves.

Smith bowled consistently on the rough deck to achieve 1/23 off 9 overs, both he and Sorensen breaking through in their fifth overs, Barron 2/27.

Redfern was hungry to bowl in a team stacked with bowling options and beat the batsmen consistently - deserving more than 2/7 off 7 by the time Barron had reached 5/58 in the 25th over.

Muddies were so focused they managed a colossal 37 overs in just two hours. Butters (1/20) chiming in with his first deserved wicket of the season while Redfern (4/18 off 13) continued to tie down the batsmen.

Muddies were twice looking at potential hatricks. Sorensen returning from the other end taking 1/0 off 3 and Walz introduced at the death to almost complete a fantastic outright.

Needing two wickets in their last six overs it was Walz who took the ninth wicket part way through the last over as the umpires then called “match over”.

Discussions ensued and they reversed their decision to allow the over to be completed, leaving Muddies just three balls to take the tenth wicket.

Twice the ball went uncontrollably in the air just missing fielders and Barron denied the Muddies the outright win.

The team is back at home next Sunday afternoon and the Muddies will look to hold their undeniable finals berth position against higher ranked Mareeba for the last two-day qualifier of the season, prior to the one-day series,

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