🏆 Sport

Mypolonga win back-to-back Murray Towns cricket grand finals

The Tigers have won their second MTCA premiership on the trot in both A and B grade in 2024, but fell short in C grade.

Peri Strathearn

Mar 11, 2024 — 3 min read

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Mypolonga’s A grade cricketers celebrate their second premiership in a row at their home ground on Saturday. Photo: Peri Strathearn.

Mypolonga are premiers of the Murray Towns Cricket Association for the second year running after outlasting Mannum in Saturday’s grand final.

Mannum’s batsmen fell 20 runs short in sweltering conditions at Mypolonga Memorial Oval, with the mercury peaking at 41 degrees during the Roos’ run chase.

Despite a stoic effort from Dwayne “Cutter” Krollig, who top scored with 40 not out, the wickets kept falling.

Wicketkeeper Lochlan Gotch ended the innings by taking a screamer to his right off the bowling of Lachlan Zrim and the edge of Kieran Hancock’s bat.

Zrim took three wickets for the match and Camron Jorgensen 4/38.

Noah Vivian trudges off after being bowled by Aaron Zrim for a duck, with Mannum teetering at 7/143. Photo: Peri Strathearn.

Earlier, Stephen Mills had set the platform by scoring 70 off 115 balls, an innings which earned him player of the match honours and even impressed even Mannum captain Nick Lindner.

Krollig took 3/14 as Mypo posted a total of 8/186.

“It was by no means an easy game,” Mypo veteran Aaron Zrim said afterwards.

“We were pretty worried at three or four times, but 186 was always going to be tough (to beat) in the heat, and in the end it was just a few too many.”

Stephen Mills is named player of the match. Photo: Peri Strathearn.

A number of association awards were presented inside Mypo’s clubrooms after the match:

A grade bowling aggregate: Paul McNicol (Meningie), 26 wickets at 16.65
A grade bowling average: Aaron Zrim (Mypolonga), 24 wickets at 7.88
A grade batting average: Steven Mills (Mypolonga), 467 runs at 66.71
A grade batting aggregate: Zac Muirhead, 525 runs
Fielding award: Ben Gilgen (Wanderers), 23 votes
Wicketkeeping award: Nick Lindner (Mannum), 18 dismissals
Best representative player under 21: Kieran Hancock (Mannum)
Best representative player: Samuel “Wozza” Elliott (Mypolonga)
First-year umpire: Tony Miletto
Umpire of the year: Scott “Hollywood” McCullough
Under-21 player of the year: Kieran Hancock
Cricketer of the year: Aaron Zrim

Recognition was also given to retiring umpire Brad Bolt.

The grand final win continued a bit of a streak for Mypolonga, who had not only won last year’s decider but are also back to back netball premiers and were football grand finalists in 2023, too.