By DAVID NAGEL
AS far as birthday presents go for a cricketer, this one just about takes the cake.
Just three days shy of his 50th birthday, Pakenham’s Jamie Lehman celebrated in style after taking his first ever hat-trick and claiming the remarkable figures of 7/1 against Clyde in Saturday’s F Grade clash at Toomuc Reserve.
To say Lehman was unplayable would be stating the bleating obvious.
In 3.5 overs of carnage – 23 balls to be exact – Lehman cut a swathe through the Cougars line-up, claiming his hat-trick, beating the outside edge in his quest to claim another and conceded just one run in an almost perfect performance.
“The conditions were just perfect for me,” Lehman said.
“It was overcast, the breeze was blowing across the ground and the ball was swinging a mile. I bowled a bloke, then got an LBW and that was the end of the over, I had to wait until I got the chance.”
A perfectly executed outswinger found its intended target… an outside edge… the ball flew to Gary Sewell in slips, he took the catch, and the celebrations began.
“I was stunned at first and it still hasn’t sunk in yet. You read about blokes taking hat-tricks and getting figures like that, but for it to happen to me, it’s unbelievable. It was a good catch from Gary… if he didn’t take it I reckon it would have hit him right between the eyes.”
Lehman is certainly no stranger to taking wickets and making runs, as a young medium-pacer he took 8/10 in an innings for Drouin and has made a double century for Catani, and two other hundreds. He claimed a further two wickets in Clyde’s second innings on the weekend to leave him just one wicket short of another magnificent achievement.
“I’ve never taken 10 wickets in a match before so I’d love to get one more this week and get that done,” he said.
And, quite remarkably, things could have been even better on Saturday, Lehman just millimetres away from taking his second hat-trick in one afternoon.
“Yeah, I was on another hat-trick but it swung too far and missed the outside edge. I bowled him next ball.”
The only run he conceded was when a young Clyde player snicked one through the slips, his near flawless performance drawing mixed reactions from his Pakenham team-mates and opponents from Clyde.
“Wally (Dennis) Porter has played for a while and said he’d never seen a hat-trick taken before, so he was pretty happy, and their captain just came up and said ‘Where did you come from?’ I’m just happy and would like to thank Gary for taking that catch.”
