Uni vs Diggers A Grade Report:
This weekend we played diggers at bob bulter park. We lost the toss and were sent in to bat. Starting off was tough on a two paced wicket with variable bounce. We lost Matt early to bring in Dean. This started a solid partnership between Dean and Tully that got us to drinks one wicket down for about 110. This put us in a good position to try and set a base coming I to the last 10. But this was not meant to be losing three wickets in three overs after drinks. Small contribution from the middle order helped get our Total to 9/207 after 40 overs.
We started well with the ball as hunter and Aj both getting wickets in their opening spells. Diggers we 5 down for 90 odd coming into drinks. We had made good inroads into the middle order. Their captain came out swinging making 47 before holes out to Aj with a great catch. We thought after drinks that if we kept building pressure and bowling well we can roll the tail. But things got very close in the end. Diggers were 9 down coming into the last over and they needed 10 off the over. Hunter was the man to bowl this over and it didn’t get off to a great start as the hit a 6 on the first ball. They now needed 4 runs to win. Two singles later and all the fielders were in the circle. Hunter bowls and a big leading edge sends the ball straight up to a cover just above Jacob Littleproud who tried to drop it with the ball bobbling in his hands. It was a a great win for the lads winning by 1 run on the second last ball.
3- Tully
2- hunter
1- Noel
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Uni vs Digger Reserve grade report:
Played at USQ Turf
The game almost did not go ahead with the pitch quite wet under the covers, a decision was made early Saturday to try and get a second pitch up. In the end we had two pitches to choose from and given the pitches were still on soft side start of play was delayed and game reduced to 30 overs each.
University won the toss and decided to bowl.
Diggers were bowled out for 128 in 27.1 overs with wickets well spread through the Team with best being Harry Shelton 2/3 from 2.1 overs, Ash Benham 2/18 off 7 and Matt Dunn 2/21 off 4, The team fielded well, with both Darcy & Harry Shelton taking 2 catches each and Liam Cousen chipped in with a timely run out.
Diggers bowled very well and runs were very hard to get early in the innings, a good partnership of 51 between John Littleproud and Matt Walls built some momentum with John falling for 45 in the 24th over. A wonderful 37 off 22 balls from Ash Benham got the team to within 3 runs of victory. Diggers to their credit did not give up and taking 4 wickets for 1 run in the penultimate over though Henry Maunder calmly hit the winning runs in the 27th over.
For a game that almost never was it was a great contest. The win was needed to keep the dream of finals cricket alive heading into the second half of the season.
Special thanks to all those who worked very hard to get the pitch ready to play.
3 – Ash Benham
2 – John Littleproud
1 – Harry Shelton
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Uni vs Highfields B Grade report:
Played at Highfields field A
Uni won the toss and bat first.
We started poorly losing wickets at regular intervals. We were only on 39 at the fall of our 5th wicket before Declan else & Beau Harvey then combined for a very valuable (and our largest) partnership of 40 runs. Once Beau fell for 16, we continued to lose the remaining wickets on a regular basis. Declan Else top scored with a very solid looking 32 runs follow by Extras as second top score of 30 (23 wides). Alex Newton chipped in late with a very handy 20 N/O to give us a total of 10-123 off only 29.2 overs.
With only a small total to defend we needed to bowl tight and field well to take out the game. Unfortunately, we were unable to do either. We dropped too many chances and handed them 22 runs in wides. (To be fair, the umpire was very harsh on some of these calls) Highfields’ two top scorers were both let off with a chance early, which ended up being the difference in the end. Beau Harvey was the pick of the bowlers with 3-27 off his 6 overs. Unfortunately Highfields ran our score down in 21 overs with the loss of only 4 wickets.
In the end it was another game we feel we probably should have won but were unable to get the job done on the day. In saying that, there was no lack of effort from the team and there were still plenty of positives to take on board moving forward.
3 Points: Beau Harvey
2 Points: Declan Else
1 Point : Alex Newton (looked good with both bat & ball, but didn’t get the opportunity to do more damage with either)
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Uni Bush Chooks vs South Magpies 1 C Grade report:
Played at Centenary Heights
Good tight bowling leading to an opposition low total that our batsmen were able to hunt down comfortably in the 34th over for a loss of just 3 wickets.
Losing the toss sent in to bowl first again. This week we were bolstered with the bowling ability of Jack Wiggins. We put him straight to work opening the bowling with Ethan Rowe. The two young lads got us off to a good start with Jack striking first, clean bowling the opener in the 6th over. While pretty tight it was a frustrating first 10 overs with so many near misses and opportunities for wickets with the ball landing just wide or with us dropping the odd catch. The next 10 overs were also pretty tight but we were only able to grab 2 more wickets, one each for Dan Byrne and David Lester. 3/68 at the 20 over mark.
In the next 20 Joel Ridley bowled another great spell of 8 overs 2/25. Joel’s figures could have been better if we held our catches. Robert Mansfield showed us how it’s done taking a very good catch at long off. It was high and long and Bertie held it. Damon Rowe then took a great catch at mid wicket, one hit hard and low. Ethan Rowe finished his spell clean bowling the opposition twice with his last two balls 3/28 (8 overs). Dan Byrne was very economical with his 1/23 (8 overs). Opposition reached 9/164 for their 40. A total we were quite happy with on that ground.
Going in to bat Robert Mansfield and Allan Peake got us off to a great start against some very good opening bowling with a 54 run partnership taking us through to the 14th over – Allan Peake with a hard earned 36 (47). Chris Grundon then came in and hit a wonderful 48 (52) not out. It was shame he ran out of runs to chase because he deserved the 50. It was great to see the young Dan Byrne finally get into his groove smashing some lovely drives and late cuts getting 36 (46) not out. Watching him make Grundo run four 2’s in one over was also fun. The lads got us there with 6 overs to spare in the end for the loss of just 3 wickets.
The 3 points goes to Dan Byrne for his tight bowling 1/23 (8overs) and his 36 (46) not out. Chris Grundon gets 2 points for his 48 (52) not out and 1/40 (6 overs), and Ethan grabs one point for his 3/28 (8 overs). Joel Ridley is unlucky not to get in the points as his spin bowling was vital through the middle section of the game.
3 – Daniel Byrne
2 – Chris Grundon
1 – Ethan Rowe
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Uni Phoenix vs Diggers Blue One C grade report:
Played at USQ Synthetic
All started well as we won the toss and elected to field. Wickets fell quickly and were shared evenly with 5/6 bowlers taking at least one. Michael took 4 catches behind the stumps including a caught King bowled King and was involved in a runout with Ethan.
Luck started to turn for the worse when we learnt the importance of calling for a catch when Mitch and Linc collided in the field. Mitch had to leave the game with a broken wrist and is now out till after Christmas. Brothers finished their innings with a chasable total of 8 for 151.
Peter and Dan opened the batting with a steady partnership until Dan got caught for the 4th time this season. Michael Sheehan couldn’t follow up his brilliant hundred last weekend and ended up with a duck.
It was still looking good at the drinks break as we were 3/80 and only needed 70 with 20 overs to go. In a choke nearly as bad as the Broncos GF we kept losing wickets. Kingi was runout in a mix up between the wickets with Scott and everything relied on the amazing Ethan Payne and Nic to secure the victory. Unsurprisingly Ethan was out scoring none off four. We ended up losing by 44 runs in our second loss of the season. We lost our last 6 wickets for only 27 runs with Mitch not being able to bat.
3 – Peter Skillington (Top Scorer – 33)
2 – Michael King (4 catches 1 runout with the gloves)
1 – Dan Skillington (22 runs, 1 wicket)
