Tatura and Numurkah embroiled in bitterly tight Haisman Shield match-up

Tatura was happy to let the Blues set the pace and it was looking like a shrewd call from Daniel Coombs when openers Nathan Gossayn and James Du Toit fell with hardly any damage done.

What followed seemed to closely resemble the trajectory of the Blues’ second-day struggle against Katandra not too long ago — Raguvaran Aravinthan entering with his side in a hole, yet valiantly doing all in his strength to create a contest out of it.

Thankfully for the visitors this time around, the situation was much less dire on the scoreboard, but the effort was appreciated all the same as he and Ben Beaumont started chalking up some serious runs.

For 22 overs, longer than the entire innings Numurkah had to work with in being skittled for 76 during Thursday’s T20 action, Aravinthan and Beaumont dragged the win projection arguably into their hands from a difficult start.

Beaumont’s fireworks-laden knock of 79, at better than a run a ball, yielded 11 fours and three sixes in a showing of total destruction which had Tatura genuinely on the back foot even after he was gone.

Brilliantly supplemented by Aravinthan’s 49, though, he was cruelly robbed of his chance to raise the bat, Numurkah fired on through some late steel out of Riley Dawson and Matt Cline and eventually settled all out on an acceptable 207.

With seven overs up its sleeve to close out proceedings Tatura’s Matthew West and Preston Aurish wanted to put in the early work and hammered Cline for 11 off the first six balls of the innings.

A highly eventful second over saw a line drive back over Connor McLeod’s head into a dropped catch before Aravinthan made no mistake two balls later to see Aurish off at cover.

Chaz Cheatley dropped in as security to escort his side to stumps with 181 needed on day two.

Coombs recognises things sit firmly in the balance.

“You could see the wicket got flat later on, so it might have been just below par,” Coombs said.

“It’s a small ground and it was hard to defend here, but it won’t be easy to chase.

“We went out pretty positive to bat, so we like to have that intent. Sometimes, if you just survive, you can lose a clump of wickets.

“To get 27 off those first seven overs helps hugely; we only need 180 now with 80 overs to use, so we’ll take that from the first session.”

Of course, Coombs had to respect the work of his adversaries to bring the game to life, ruing what could have been along the way.

“We had probably three half-chances to get Ben out and we could potentially have been chasing less,” Coombs said.

“There was a five-over stretch where they were really on top, so that period just before tea was crucial.

“Late on, things flattened out on the pitch and it was hard to get any sideways movement.

“It’s a fairly even position. I’m pretty happy with where we are and, hopefully, the boys can bat well next week to knock it off.”