1st XI match reports
Rd 6 vs St Davids Rd 4 vs Forest Hill 1st XI Rd 3 vs Blackburn Nth
We won the toss and sent St David’s into bat. Hoping to get quick wickets we were denied early as St David’s moved to 36 before Prez grabbed our first. Rev chipped in with 2 more before tea. However they had consolidated and batted well. 3 for 115 at tea. Master Chef Malavathi, Prez, Buck-man and Rev toiled away after tea with some good line and length bowling but it was going to be one of those days with wickets being hard to find. However we kept working away. Fielding was good all day. We got steady wickets thru to the close of play Prez the pick of the bowlers could of had 2-3 more. Liquidator broke a good partnership when tossed the rock his bowling keep improving with little opportunity. St Davids all out for a competitive 268 from 78 over’s. Wickets shared. 2 each for Rev, Prez , Liquidator, Buckets and myself.
Chasing 268 started all the wrong way for us. Prez gone for 4, once again stitched up by Blake when opening the batting together. No excuses though after facing 45 million deliveries over the last month they should be coming down like watermelon’s. Blake got a couple of early chances but couldn’t find any rhythm leaving us 2/13 after 15 overs!. Rev looked scratchy early however battle away and when joined buckets looked to start the fight back. 2/21 after 20 overs! Though there were a couple of moments where the game could of gone either way we never really looked back from this moment. Buckets and Rev put together 113 in good time for the third wicket. Buckets trapped leg before for a well made 67. Meshi (2IC) came to the crease, finally for once the master wasn’t in touch from ball 1 a rarity. St Davids did themselves no favours when the keeper dropped him on three. Rev was also trapped LBW on 57. 3/168. Paul joined 2IC in the middle and they took the score to 233 with some brutal hitting. Paul out of 23. 2IC and IC(me) took us to the target. We batted for one more over to make sure we had truly passed the score. Meshi was caught on the fence for 82.
6/281 at close of innings. A well fought win. Credit to St David’s for once again playing a hard and enjoyable game of cricket.
Get down to training to work on those needed skills.
Doncaster next at the Refinery! Let’s work hard to go to the xmas break on the march!
Well finally won a toss and sent Forest Hill into the field. Hone was elevated to opener and joined Pritesh. Pritesh was unlucky caught down the leg side and Lindsay followed shortly after. 2/22. Withers and Irish steadied the ship with solid 65 run partnership, The Rev fell on 33, leaving us on 3/84. Meshi(2IC) and Irish enjoy being at the wicket together and again hit it off taking us to tea only 3 down.
Meshi fell after tea ending the 91 run partnership. Good to see Desai returning to some form with 63, I joined Prez in middle, Prez fell with the score on 214, A well fought 60 from 137 ball doing a excellent job occupying the crease. Paul “SA” Comer looked in awesome touch before running himself out for 16. Before the Liquidator and Myself took the score to 287 for 7 when i was caught in the 65 over. The Liquidator held off the final sale till as late as possible to see the 80 over’s out. With the help of the Patel’s and Henley took the score to 341 before the innings came to a close in the 77th over. Lemmy ended up 37, Henley robbed of another ton on 9 not out.
If we can apply ourselves for 80 overs this is the result we will achieve. A must to compete with the top teams.
Day 2 brought us another tough day weather wise, Forest Hill came out with plenty of intent to battle away. Fielding/bowling was great all day. Prez setting the standard early holding on to a scorcher at cover. Stuart snared one before tea to have them 2 for. I was lucky enough to bowl their opener on 95! Then Henley,Hone & Boomer Patel went about the task of tying them down all bowling good spells. After bowling a tight 7 over spell for 24, Henley turned the game on its head with a catch at cover off Hone. Then a run out to have them 5/205. With 20 overs to go Forest Hill required 120. Jason latched onto another catch, Meshi took another. 2 run outs, 1 a super effort from Boomer Patel with a direct hit. Meshi & Jason combined for the 10th wicket to leave Forest Hill 91 runs short 7 overs later. 67 overs all up. A great team win with everyone chipping in. A really hard fought/well play game of cricket by both sides. Thanks to the other 10 blokes for a top effort.
Get down to training Wednesday to see the blow torch applied to the selection committee.
Positive feel with all the boys leaving Elgar Park after celebrating Hone dog’s 200th. Group travelling rocks. I think we should try this most weeks.
Lost about my 20th toss in a row and Blackburn sent us into the field. A bemusing start to the day as the opening batsmen left the very first ball of play, only to have middle and leg removed! 1-0. A partnership formed. However with Patel(Jnr), Langley and Prez bowling tightly and the fielding backing them up the scoring was slow. Desai took a sharp chance behind the stumps to make it 2/42. A mini collapse and the home side found themselves at 4/43. Prez, Hone and Patel(Snr) on debut pinned the middle/lower order down and took steady wickets that never allowed Blackburn North to get back on track. Patel(Jnr) run the last wicket out from Mid off with a perfect throw over the bails. Out of for 92. In 43 overs. Highlight of the innings was Hone’s catch at fine leg after the ball went into the upper atmosphere. I wasn’t convinced he’d take it.....But he did!
With 33 overs left in day, most thought we’d cruise past the target. That’s why cricket is the game it is. It threw a spanner in the works. Pritesh(8), Blake (9) and Withers (7) all gone early to leave us 3/26. Prez & Meshi(2IC)(2nd in charge) settled the ship with a very determined and team orientated partnership before 2IC got a slippery one through the gate with 3 balls left in the day to leave us 4/67. Prez unbeaten on 22 and Myself on 4. 26 runs to get for our first points. THEY WILL BE THE HARDEST 26 RUNS WE WILL HAVE TO SCORE THIS SEASON. This is not over by any stretch guys. Cricket is a great game for this very reason anything can happen Saturday. We need to turn up with a purpose. A simple purpose. Get 26 runs. We can worry about the rest when we get to 93.
We started day 2 with another solid warm up with all turning up on time. Jason and myself managed to negotiate the overnight task of knocking up 26 runs. Then came the silly season chase for quick runs with everyone chipping in for a boundary or 2 on our way to 172 all out after 19 overs. We had 58 overs to bowl Blackburn North out again. It’s pretty hard to bowl a side out for a second time cheaply. We battled away for the whole 58 overs getting 9 wickets. Everyone really worked hard to try and get the 10 points. But none the less a good result to get out first points. Congratulations to Pretish for his first wicket for the club. Kaine for his first runs for the club. Stuart’s first wicket for the 1’s. Then he got greedy and took another 4 to end up with 5 for in the second innings. Thanks to Kotsa/Beau for getting down and scoring. Get to training to secure your spot for clash versus Forest Hill next game. Congrats Lindsay on your 200th.
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