by Mark McLauchlan
The Baw Baw Veterans Cricket Club are currently playing in the 12th annual Over 60s Cricket Carnival in Echuca.

The club is drawn in division three – there are four divisions in total, made up of 24 teams. There are pool matches on Sunday, Monday and Wednesday, with divisional finals played on Thursday.
Baw Baw's first game was against Warrandyte at the picturesque Koondrook Oval. Warrandyte won the toss and under overcast skies and on a dampish wicket sent Baw Baw into bat.
The early bowling from Warrandyte was excellent, particularly the opening spell of Damian Mobilia who bowled seven hostile and very accurate overs to take 1/8, including a particularly quick bouncer that almost took this author's head off.
The early going was tough and at the drinks break at the 20 over mark, Baw Baw was only 1/20.
The second 20 overs was a much better session, with 89 runs being scored in those 20 overs. This was largely due to Alex Miller, who blasted 34 off 30 balls before his forced retirement, and Mick O'Neill, who got a quick 15 off 19 balls.
'Rocket' Rod Pallot scored 13 off 17 balls in a valuable late innings partnership with Mark McLauchlan, who finished with 22* after returning from an earlier retirement.
The innings closed after our 40 overs with the score at 7/129. Not a great score, but one Baw Baw felt was defendable if they bowled well on the difficult wicket and considering the slow outfield.
Baw Baw's bowlers attacked their task with gusto and professionalism. The lines were kept tight, the fielding was alert and the catching was excellent.
A great opening spell by 'Carrots' Williams of seven overs, two maidens and one wicket for 11 runs was followed by equally terrific spells by Russell Vincent 7/1/2/14 and Tony Wyatt 7/0/2/21.
At the drinks break after 20 overs Warrandyte was 47, which was slightly ahead of Baw Baw's position, but had lost five wickets.
After drinks another wicket fell so Warrandyte were 6/48, but there followed a period of fightback by the Warrandyte batters.
After 31 overs they had reached 6/91, so needed only 39 runs off 54 remaining balls, in what was shaping as a nail-biter finish.
However, a brilliant bowling partnership between Brett Carey at one end and Mick O'Neill at the other saw four wickets fall in rapid succession.
Brett finished with 2/16 off 5 overs and Mick had 2/13 off 4.3 overs. Warrandyte was all out for 108 in the 37th over and Baw Baw had won by 21 runs.
There will be a final summary of the carnival in next week's Gazette.