Hannans win on final ball
Hannans all-rounder Gavin Bailiff's perfect season in Goldfields A-grade turf cricket ended with the right-hander posting the winning run from the final delivery in a pulsating grand final triumph against North Kalgoorlie on Sunday.
Eight days after claiming the O'Shaughnessy Medal as the competition's leading player, Bailiff dug out a single from Matt Carter's last ball of the innings to deliver Hannans' third flag in four seasons.
After Hannans were set 174 to win, the task blew out to a run a ball in the pivotal final stages in what Bailiff said were easily the most nerve-racking moments of his career.
"Matt Carter bowled a perfect yorker (on the final delivery) and there was virtually nothing I could do with it, apart from stopping it from hitting the stumps," he said.
"As it was, I hit it straight back down the track, but only a few metres in front of me and, obviously, Craig Menhennett (at the non-striker's end) was running anyway and we both made dives at our respective ends to make our ground.
"It was absolutely the closest, tightest game I've played in my life but, just like I'd said earlier in the week, we expected to have to fight for every wicket and run and that's what we got."
Bailiff said in the second-last over he had tried desperately for a boundary to avoid the run-a-ball scenario.
"I'd hoped to set ourselves needing maybe four runs in that last over and tried my hardest to smash a boundary from the other end because Carter was bowling 100 per cent on the money," he said.
"I wasn't sure, the way Carter was bowling, if we were going to make it."
Bailiff was unbeaten on 54, which included two boundaries and two sixes, and Menhennett was 2 not out as Hannans compiled 7-174.
Hannans' Jon Brodala had earlier taken 4-35 from nine overs after Norths closed their 50 overs at 9-173.
The result foiled Norths' bid for back-to-back flags.
Last weekend's grand final was postponed a day after Friday's steady rain.
Grand final scoreboards, page 27.
