192 off 92 in second ever innings: Coast cricketer Grant Loxton goes BALLISTIC

HELENSVALE Pacific Pines fifth grader Grant Loxton has scored 192 runs from 92 deliveries in just his second game of club cricket since he was a kid.

Helensvale Pacific Pines cricketer Grant Loxton

HELENSVALE Pacific Pines fifth grader Grant Loxton has scored 192 runs from 92 deliveries in just his second game of club cricket since he was a kid.

The 40-year-old was roped into padding up by the father of his eight-year-old son’s best friend.

After scoring 28 off 16 on debut Loxton was promoted up the order to open against Palm Beach on Saturday.

“It was all sort of surreal,” Loxton said. “I was just trying not to get out.

“My mate said the week before I’d gotten out to a crappy ball, and I’d get three or four of those per over in fifth grade – I only needed to hit those ones and block the rest. That’s what I did and I got lucky.”

Helensvale Pacific Pines cricketer Grant Loxton

Loxton batted steadily for 20 balls before throwing caution to the wind, piling on 14 sixes and 21 fours in an innings that lasted 31 overs.

Loxton said he had never played serious cricket in his life, with a “muck-around” indoor cricket career his only experience with the bat since childhood.

“I spread the love around,” Loxton said.

“Their worst bowler in the team was bowling big, loopy off-spinners that weren’t spinning so he was the one I didn’t go after; didn’t want to get out to him so I couldn’t risk it.”

While Loxton raced towards a double-century, the mate who signed him up was caught behind on his third delivery.

The pair combined for 194 runs from 95 balls.

Loxton’s batting heroics inspired Helensvale to its first win of the season by 233 runs.

With 218 runs from his first two career innings, Loxton’s batting average sits at 109. He needs 80 runs next week to keep it above Sir Don­ald Bradman’s 99.94.

“I’m considering retirement,” Loxton said.

“I could get a duck next week and my son thinks I’m a hero.”

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EARLIER

RIVAL  coaches Chris Swan and Peter Clifford will face off in a battle for the ages when Gold Coast Dolphins host Toombul in Saturday's Queensland Premier Cricket Round 8 game at Kerrydale.

Swan, who took 101 first-class wickets for the Bulls, and later spent a year as the state's bowling coach, acknowledges former NSW and Queensland batsman Clifford as an invaluable early mentor.   Post-retirement, Clifford played a couple of seasons at Surfers Paradise in the 1990s when Swan was an emerging teenager.

  “Any team coached by Cliffo will come at you hard,” said Swan, who scored his first overseas professional gig at Greenock in Scotland thanks to a recommendation from Toombul’s record runmaker.

“Both teams will be looking to play aggressively because we’re both needing a result to push up the ladder,” said Clifford, who captained Australia at Under-19 level and is best remembered for a defiant innings of 83 not out which denied his future state their first Sheffield Shield in 1985.

### For tipping.com ### Former Queensland cricketer and now Gold Coast Dolphins coach Chris Swan . Picture: Jerad Williams

The Dolphins, coming off a gutsy first-innings victory at Sandgate last weekend, welcome back  quick bowler Kyle Wisnieski, recovered from a hamstring injury, and will hand a rare senior outing to one-time first-grade skipper Max Houlahan.

Toombul, fielding the youngest line-up in the competition, have been heavily reliant on a potent pace attack. Accountant Chris Knight, a nippy 190cm swing bowler, boasts competition-high numbers with 21 wickets to date following his 5-65 in last week's first-innings win over Ipswich.

 Knight started out as a Toombul junior, then had half a dozen increasingly productive seasons with Valleys before returning this year.  He is the son of club stalwart Andrew Knight who along with Clifford was in the Toombul team which faced the Dolphins when the Gold Coast made their grade cricket debut in 1990.

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