Cricket
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YOUNG-GUN Tom Shannon's maiden century against Coro anchored Hanwood's "best performance this season".
Coro went into the match firm favourites, but at the end of day one Coro captain Tim Rand struggled to pinpoint a highlight.
Shannon's unbeaten 105 was backed up by by half-centuries from Michael McWhirter (58) and Jamie Whitworth (57), taking the team to 8-301 after 70 overs.
The top order partnership of Kris Hicken (26) and McWhirter was credited for allowing Shannon and Whitworth the freedom to play their natural games.
Shannon said the century confirmed his belief that he should be classed as a batting all-rounder, despite faring better with the ball in the first half of the season.
"My scores this season haven't reflected how good my batting has felt," Tom Shannon said.
"Coro missed three chances to get me out, I had a one-handed catch at mid-on put down when I was below 10 and I also had a tough chance put down by the keeper.
"I'm not used to getting dropped because in the past I haven't had many chances, so luck was on my side."
Shannon said he never really felt in on what he described as a bowler's pitch, but successfully took the long handle on 70 runs with just four overs left.
He described the experience of scoring a century as "weird".
"The century felt pretty weird, it was just like making a 50, but of course it was much more significant," he said.
"All I could think about was how I needed to celebrate that harder than I naturally would."
Hanwood captain Dean Catanzariti was confident if his side swallowed catching chances next weekend, an outright win was guaranteed.
"This Saturday was definitely the best day of cricket for Hanwood this year," Catanzariti said.
"The boys have been going down to the nets a bit over the holidays to consolidate all the training earlier in the year and it's really paid off.
"We can still improve (referring to ducks by Brendan Hicken and Brad Hornery), but 300 is unbelievable and if we take our catches we'll definitely win outright, there's no doubts about it."
Shane Hutchinson's leg-spin proved the highlight for Coro, bowling a length that troubled the batsmen.
Hutchinson knocked over the middle order finishing with figures of 4-65 and was unlucky not to get two more wickets.
Coro captain Tim Rand rued dropping century-maker Shannon three times, but said the match could be salavaged if the conditions were the same next week.
"We haven't gone for 300 this season, our day didn't go to plan and Hanwood batted very well, all credit to them," Rand said.
"The lowlight was certainly the fielding, dropping Tom Shannon three times really hurt us.
"If we're going to win we'll need to start well, put together a few good partnerships and notch up a century and a few half-centuries like Hanwood did."