Marburg mowed down after delay

IWMCA Umpires and a Marburg groundsman inspect the Marburg Showgrounds outfield before play on Saturday.

Rob Williams

WHAT went on before play in Saturday’s Ipswich Division One semi-final almost overshadowed the cricket and may yet have major ramifications.

With home team Marburg needing only to draw to qualify for the final, play was delayed until 4pm on Saturday as Marburg officials insisted the ground was too wet to get a mower onto it.

It took the appearance of Ipswich West Moreton Cricket Association president Bruce Raleigh at 3.30pm to order play to begin at 4pm.

The outfield still hadn’t been fully mowed by that stage, leaving the bizarre sight of a 20m wide ring of long grass inside the boundary.

There wasn’t a boundary hit along the ground all weekend but it didn’t prevent Northsiders winning by 35 runs to advance to this weekend’s final against Laidley.

Batting first when play finally got underway Northsiders reached 8-127 before they declared yesterday, giving Marburg 60 overs to chase the runs or survive.

“If they got the runs fair enough,” Northsiders skipper Tim Clarke said of the declaration.

“But if we were nine down and we ran out of overs it would have been unforgivable.”

Clarke suspected Marburg were distracted by the situation and it cost them.

“I don’t think they wanted to play the whole weekend,” he said.

“We had so much ammunition after what happened (on Saturday).”

Former Mustangs players Rob and Michael Hillier used it well.

They admitted they were highly motivated by Saturday’s delay and it proved a powerful tonic as Michael top scored with 36 before Rob took 7-24.

“Definitely,” Rob replied when asked if the situation on Saturday made him even more determined.

The big fast bowler even hoped his skipper would lose the toss so he could bowl first.

Marburg were in trouble early in their reply, losing 3-5 before experienced duo David Lund (29) and David Lyons (23) steadied things.

When Lyons was bowled by Rob Hillier to leave his team 8-83 the Northerners were as good as through to the final.

Lund admitted the distractions before play on Saturday took a toll on his team.

“When the game is rain affected and there are things like that happening you are not 100 per cent focussed,” he said.

“We had a chat before the game and tried not to let it affect us.

“We played all season playing hard and fair cricket and gave it our all.

“Our all wasn’t enough.”

More will come from the match controversy with the IWMCA holding a meeting tonight to discuss the situation.

“I got there and said I could not see any reason they couldn’t play,” said Raleigh, a groundsman for the past 25 years.

“There was nothing wrong with the square, there was a few wet patches either side but that wouldn’t have had any effect on the game.

“I was under the impression on Friday that the tractor was far too heavy for the ground.

“Well you could have blown me down with a feather when they drove it down to the ground with massive grass tyres on the back.

“It wouldn’t have marked the oval. They could have mowed it earlier in the morning.”