On Saturday at Petersham Oval, Camden Campbelltown Ghosts put on their best batting performance so far, batting out their full 50 overs to reach 7/257.
They needed a little bit of luck to record their first win of the season, but it just wasn’t to be, pipped at the post by home side Randwick Petersham.
Losing the toss, the Ghosts were asked to bat first in the round five match, another limited overs clash.
The young side were full of runs for the first time this season, starting from the top.
Toby Flynn-Duncombe and his opening partner Adam Whatley got the innings rolling with a first wicket partnership of 45.
Flynn-Duncombe (32) was the first to go, with Whatley (22) losing his wicket when the score was 98 and after a nice little combination with Jackson Isakka (pictured above) that yielded 53 runs for the Ghosts.
When Isakka departed for 48 the Ghosts were looking the goods and another useful partnership between Aaron Muir (16) and Nicholas Appleton pushed the score to 183 for four wickets down.
While Isakka smashed two sixes and four boundaries in his innings, Appleton top scored with 58.
His innings included five boundaries and two sixes, and he faced just 61 balls.
The Ghosts would have walked out to field confident that 257 would be a winning score.
When they had Petersham at six for 140, they would have been entitled to think the home side was never going to reach 258 for victory.
But they were wrong.
The next wicket fell 109 runs later, just nine short of victory, which the home side achieved with four balls to spare.
It was close and the Ghosts will take heart from their best performance of the season so far, but now the challenge is to do it all again, and again and again.
This Saturday, the Ghosts host Gordon at Raby in round six, from 10am.
