South Hedland crush Lions to take first place in Ray Stoddart Shield

The South Hedland Cricket Club has topped the T20 Ray Stoddart Shield leaderboard after defeating the Hedland Lions by 71 runs at Colin Matheson Oval on February 23.

South Hedland won the toss and opted to bat first.

Opener Aidan Enright scored 37 from 15 balls but was caught by Pushap Salwan.

Captain Zacharia Davies was the next best batter, scoring 29 off 14 balls including three sixes to guide his side to a dominant 6-168.

Usman Naeem opened the bowling for the Lions but was taken off after giving up 31 runs from two overs.

Daniel Vo was the stand-out bowler with four wickets while Shujat Zaman bagged two scalps to help restrict the run rate.

The Lions’ run chase never got going and at one stage they were 4-28.

Clinical bowling kept the Lions out of the game with the side finishing on 9-97 after their 20 overs.

Lions’ best batter Pushap Salwan scored 27 runs off 35 balls, while Zacharia Davies, Patrick Miller and Aidan Enright bagged two wickets each.

In the other games, Wanderers (8-154) defeated Rovers by 17 runs.

Opening batter Ryan Steel guided the Wanderers through a challenging period with a hard-fought 42, while Bailey Minnissale and Kris Brown both failed to score.

Jason Turner and Voda van der Merwer hit 32 runs each to power their side to 8-154.

In reply, Rovers lost early wickets, falling to 4-61.

Regular wickets continued to fall with Rovers finishing on 8-137.

Josh Harvey was the top scorer for Rovers with 32 and Dean Marlow took four wickets for Wanderers.

In the final game of the round Port Hedland smashed the Miners by six wickets, cruising to victory in the 17th over.

Miners batted first and were restricted to 9-94 from their 20 overs, with captain Razi Zain the top scorer.

Ports’ Chris Briody bagged a five-fer and conceded just 17 runs as the stand-out bowler.

Briody then guided his side to victory with an unbeaten 52 .

Port finished on 4-95 to claim the six-wicket victory.