After traveling to Cootamundra on Sunday in a bid to keep their season alive, the Yabbies were undone by a tricky pitch and some indifferent batting. 

Having won the toss, Yass sent Cootamundra in to bat first, and it appeared that the Yabbies’ suspicions about the wicket were quickly confirmed, as the home side was quickly reduced to 4-52. 

Wickets continued to tumble consistently, and Cootamundra were unable to rally a coherent resistance as the Yabbies swarmed and refused to let up the pressure on any front. 

Yass’s bowling attack shared the load well, and its variety was its strength as four bowlers took two wickets each to have Cootamundra all out for 117. 

“Everyone did bowl pretty well,” Yass captain Dave Field said. 

“Tom Parr, it was his first game in a couple of years, he came in and bowled well. 

“Everyone bowled well, it was good to have those options in the team.” 

After routing Cootamundra for less than 150 on a wicket which Field knew was historically good to batsmen, he was assured going into the second innings. 

“I was pretty confident,” Field said. 

“I knew it’d be tough, but we were pretty confident.” 

The trouble started when openers Brent Poidevin and Ben Hutchinson were both dismissed for ducks, and were quickly followed by Nick Pollack and Parr to leave Yass in dire straits at 4-26. 

While the wicket was playing a few tricks which made life difficult for the batsman, Field said that Cootamundra’s excellent bowling performance coincided with a bad day for the Yass batters.

“The ball was moving about, they didn’t give us many bad balls to hit and a few of us played a few false shots,” he said. 

“Along with them bowling well, we just fell in a bit of a hole really and couldn’t quite recover.” 

There was a brief rearguard from Field (20 off 70 balls) and Craig Irwin (31 off 56), which gave Yass a partnership of 49 – the highest of the match – but it was not enough, and when Irwin and Field were dismissed within two runs of one another, the last three batsmen could only add eight more runs between them. 

Yass were dismissed for 85, and will now see Cootamundra progress to the final, where they will play Wagga. 

Although it was a dispiriting end to the Stribley Shield, Yass’s representative season is not over just yet. In a week and a half, the Yabbies will reconvene to play for the O’Farrell Cup against Albury, in Albury. The winner will claim the cup and be required to defend their title.