On a day that threatened to be washed out by thunderstorms, Orange only saw 15 or 20 minutes of downpour, giving nearly a full day’s play to take place.  

The spice in the wicket meant there was nearly a result on day one of the two-day clash as Zac Reimer picked up 6-26 to hold CYMS to 110, while Hugh Le Lievre took 5-21 to leave Centrals 7-76 in reply. 

It was Le Lievre’s first game back from a season off, and despite only rolling the arm over for the first time he said he felt good to be back bowling. 

It was nice to be back out there, and it was good to get a decent amount of play in,” he said. 

He said conditions were tough for batters, with the pitch hard to distinguish from the centre square on arrival at Wade Park. 

“It was a bit poppy initially but after the rain came in and the covers came off it sort of skidded through,” Le Lievre said. 

“I was just trying to get it into the right areas … I’d be lying if I said I knew where they were going to start with.” 

Le Lievre is only playing for the first week – Eddie Wright, Jarrod Urza and Kevin Costa will make their way back into the team next week, but he and his fellow fill-ins Dave Neil and Anthony Spruce more than carried their weight.

Neil and Spruce combined for the top two scores for CYMS – with sundries the third-biggest contributor to the total of 110 – with Neil hitting 31 and Spruce 19.

They might as well have been 62 and 38 for that wicket, with the ball hooping and pitch popping. 

“They did really well, without that partnership between Dave and Anthony I really don’t think we would have cracked 100,” Le Lievre said. 

“In the conditions Dave and Dean [Turner]’s innings of 30-odd were a class above, I thought they played really well.”

Centrals stand-in skipper Turner top scored for the match with a quickfire 32, and he said he decided to take a different tack to Neil’s chance-less innings. 

“I went in at 5.30 and thought we were finishing at 6.00 so I threw the bat a bit but at two minutes to six I found we were playing until 7, so I started batting properly and then got out,” Turner said. 

“It was one of those days where there was always going to be a ball with your name on it, we saw it during our innings that there were a few balls which were completely unplayable, missing by a foot, so I had a go.” 

Both Turner and Le Lievre said despite Reimer’s brilliant six-wicket haul that young gun Fletcher Rose was the pick of the bowlers. 

Rose took two wickets, but Le Lievre said he could have taken more and Turner said he was a handful in the conditions. 

“He was almost too good in the conditions,” Turner said of Rose. 

“It was Zac’s sort of wicket, he just put them on the spot and go a few bowled, a few popped up, he bowled really well.”

Rose also finished unbeaten on 14, but won’t be available next week, with Daryl Kennewell returning, while Mitch Harvey also took 2-25

Highlights in the field included a ripping catch at point by Matt Ripps and a direct hit by CYMS’ Rohan Bouffler from a backhand flick at mid-on to run out Centrals opener Jack Dodds.