Heytesbury Rebels coach Simon Harkness leads from front with unbeaten century

The Heytesbury Rebels coach saluted for his ninth career century on Saturday, and first since the 2017/18 South West Cricket season.

In doing so he put his team in a winning position to close out its match against Woorndoo.

"Talk to any batter, they want to make as many runs as they can and help their team win," Harkness said.

"It's what you play cricket for and it's good to tick another one off."

Harkness opened the Rebels' batting on Woorndoo's ground, with his unbeaten 104 (from 165 balls) making up a large part of the team's 6-178 stand.

"It was a pretty slow ground, so I knew I had to bat for a long time," Harkness said.

"I got myself into a position that I knew if I batted the whole innings, I'd probably end up with a hundred, and we'd end up with a good score.

"And the boys were good, they knew what was going on and helped me get there with some smart batting and rotating the strike."

The Rebels later hit the ground running in the field, the game looking over by drinks as Woorndoo sat on the brink at 9-76.

But a late order stand by the Tigers' final two batters, Jason Fowler (40no) and Andrew Jehu (23), pushed the game well into the 45-over mark before the Rebels could break through.

"It was a bit annoying. We just couldn't get that last wicket," Harkness said.

"We tried a few things to get a bit of spunk in the field. When you don't get a wicket for a while it can get a bit flat.

"Credit to them, they dug in and denied us, but we got there in the end."

Chris Vogels was the Rebels' best bowler with figures of 4-17.

Heytesbury will go head-to-head against the undefeated Mortlake next round, in what arguably will be the match of the round.

"We can't wait, we've had some crackers against them in the last few years," Harkness said.

"They're good cricketers, we're good cricketers, so we'll take it to them and I'm sure they're thinking the same thing."

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