Fill-in to grand final hero; Rusk delivers for Appleby
Appleby has beaten Invercargill-Old Boys to win the 2023-24 Southland ILT Premier League title, and it's taken some late-order heroics to do so.
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Ryan Rusk started the season as a fill-in. But by the end of the 2023-2024 Southland club cricket season, he was the Appleby Cricket Club’s grand final hero.
Rusk delivered a match-winning lower-order knock of 41 not out on Saturday to lift Appleby to back-to-back ILT Premier League titles.
Appleby knocked over Invercargill-Old Boys in a low-scoring and rain-interrupted 2024 decider at Queens Park in Invercargill.
Before Rusk’s match-winning knock, it was the Appleby bowlers who produced a very tidy display to restrict Invercargill-Old Boys to just 133 batting first.
Appleby was two for 24 after seven overs when rain fell, and play was halted.
When the rain eased and play eventually resumed Appleby was handed the revised target of 94 from 24 overs.
That looked some way away when Appleby then lost five players for single digits to be 40-odd for seven.
That’s when Rusk wrote his name into Southland cricket finals folklore.
Rusk’s important unbeaten 41 batting at eight ensured Appleby got to the required target of 94 still seven down and with three overs to spare.
He found support from Prashant Singh whose 14 not out from 19 balls in the context of the situation was massive.
Naturally, Appleby captain Sam Downing was full of praise for Rusk.
“It’s unreal to be fair. Ryan started off the season filling in once or twice and then low [playing] numbers meant he’s become a permanent player and has been great for us all season.
“He’s wicket kept for us when we needed someone, and that knock today was like a hundred in normal conditions, pretty much.”
“I think Prashant’s innings at the end was very crucial as well. We bat right down, we pride ourselves on that.”
Both teams - in particular Appleby - went into the final on the back of little cricket for various reasons, including wet weather. But there were no signs of that in the bowling department as Appleby’s bowlers gave little away.
Downing was confident that was in them despite the lack of cricket of late.
“As a group we trained bloody well. As hard as it is to get that match practice, [at] our trainings we lifted the intensity the last few weeks because we knew we had to.”
Earlier in the day Invercargill-Old Boys’ Brendan Domigan almost single-handedly got Invercargill-Old Boys to 133 with his innings of 55 which also in the context of the game was significant.
There’s no doubt Southland’s senior club cricket competition, at the moment, very much centres around the Appleby and Invercargill-Old Boys rivalry.
Earlier in the season it was Invercargill-Old Boys who took the honours in the T20 format, but it was Appleby who had the wider smiles at the end of play on Saturday.