WHEN Nic Broes made his return to his hometown cricket scene this season he was hopeful he could make a big impact for St Pat's Old Boys.
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Fair to say, after just two matches, that impact has been big enough to register on the Richter scale.
Broes has become the first centurion of the Bathurst Orange Inter District Cricket 2021-22 season after belting 138 off 108 in the Saints' big win over CYMS at Riawena Oval on Saturday.
His innings included 12 fours and five sixes, helping the Saints post 3-299 off their 40 overs.
Pat's then bowled out CYMS for 163 in just over 33 overs.
It wasn't just Broes doing all the damage with the bat either.
Cooper Brien hit 79 runs alongside Broes in a giant 179-run stand for the second wicket, posting the second highest partnership for any wicket since the BOIDC's reformation.
"The hundred was nice but it was really nice to bat with Cooper, someone I've worked with a lot during the off-season and during the season already. Seeing him do well was nice," Broes said.
"In the end it turned out to be a really good day. It was a little tricky at times against the new ball early, but it was easier to score early with that ball being harder. During the middle they dropped the field back, so I was mostly picking up ones and twos.
"Then from probably 80 on I think there were a few more boundaries. It's actually quite a big ground. There's short squares but deep pockets so it can be easier to find gaps sometimes and find the boundary that way."
Broes' efforts with the bat come after claiming 5-5 with the ball in his eight overs against ORC in round one.
Broes has also become just the fourth person since the BOIDC's reintroduction to score a century and claim a five wicket haul in the same season (Ed Morrish and Hugh Le Lievre 2019-20, Dan Casey 2020-21).
Pat's rarely put a foot wrong in the field as well.
They had CYMS in all sorts of strife at 2-6 early before Dave Neil (53) tried to lead the charge for the hosts.
However, thanks to impressive spells from Angus Parsons (3-28) and Matt Fearnley (3-31), Pat's kept CYMS well short of the target.
"We probably strayed a little bit early but once we tightened that up we showed that our bowling attack can be difficult to score quickly against," Broes said.
"That's a main feature of our attack. It's early in the season, so if we clean up that early part of the innings then we probably bowl them out for less. We're very happy with the way we finished it off though."
All six Saints bowlers came away with at least one wicket.
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