A Grade vs Highfields
A grade took on Highfields @ Highfields sports park. We lost the toss and were told to have a bowl. We didn’t start to well with the ball having the bowlers taking a little while to adjust to the swinging Duke balls. Wides were regular with the opening batters getting quite a few freebies. It was tough day for the bowlers on what could only be described as a road in Highfields. The boys fielded pretty well with an early run out helping dismiss one of the openers. Runs continued throughout the innings at a fast rate. Noel Knight and Cooper Webster both slowed the game down with spin. This seemed to work will in slowing down the run rate. Noel picked up two wickets to finish 2-30 off his 8 overs. Olly Dugdale came in through the middle and finished with figures of 1-32 off 5 overs. Highfields finished there 40 overs at 4-272.
We knew that we were going to have to bat deep to have any chance of winning this match. Cooper Webster and I opened the batting with Dean needing sometime to gather himself after keeping all afternoon. Cooper was dismissed for 10 off 32 balls and this brought in Dean Sullivan. Dean and I put on around 200 runs together to put us in a good position coming into the final overs. Dean fell late in the day to finish on 85 off 81. At this stage we still need around 8 an over for the last 6 overs. In the 37th over I was dismissed for 113 off 101 balls. Still needing to go at 8 an over we were a bit nervous as Jacob Littleproud was dismissed the very next ball. Knowing we had wickets in hand and still need to go a reasonable rate Andrew Johnston was sent in. Alex and AJ kept up with the run rate for the final few overs with us requiring 6 off the last over. A dot on the first ball followed by 2 fours sealed was a great run chase for the A grade team and even better to start the season.
3 – Tully Willson
2 – Dean Sullivan
1 – Noel Knight
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Reserve Grade vs Highfields
Reserve grade started the season with a very good win over Highfields. After winning the toss and deciding to bowl, the season could not have started any better with Hayden Rowe taking a wicket from the first ball of the game with the help of John Littleproud taking the catch behind the stumps. Highfields batted consistently throughout their innings to post 8/208 from their 40 overs. Uni used 8 bowlers and the wickets were fairly well spread though David Else with 2/23 off 7 overs and Alex Newton with 2/14 off 4 overs were the highlight. The fielding was generally good though Sam Mason took a great catch to dismiss their Captain just as they were starting to rebuild.
John Littleproud and Liam Cousen did a great job getting through the first 10 overs without loss but the game changed when Matt Walls came to the crease scoring a very entertaining and well deserved 112 off 60 balls which included 10 – 4’s and 9 – 6’s before being caught on the boundary. John Littleproud steered the Team home in 34 overs with an unbeaten 62. A great start to the season.
3 – Matt Walls
2 – John Littleproud
1 – David Else
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Uni B grade vs West Wolves:
Won toss and batted
Good opening stand off first 9 overs of 48 with Catlow out for 31
Tighter bowling saw us at 4 for 79 at 20 overs
Alan peak 15 Tom crooke 13
Joseph roberts making 55 on debut and good contributions by Adrian Mayers 17 and harry lester 15 not out and and beau Harvey 11 not out saw innings close at 8 for 175
Good bowling in first 20 saw wests 2 for 73 after 20 with wickets to Harvey and also Callaghan
Wests chased down at 5 for 177 with 8 balls to spare
Good batting by no3 for wests 46 and no 4 34 with not enough runs on board
Ryan Callaghan pick of bowling 3/19 off his 8
Harry Lester without luck 0/29 off 8 and beau Harvey 1/33 off his 8.
3 – j roberts
2 – r Callaghan
1 – a Catlow
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Uni Bush Chooks vs Wests C Grade:
Close game down to the last ball but we managed to get across the line to win by 5.
Batting first we were off to a pretty good start care of Bertie 21 (37). We lost opener Grundo after a few overs to a good Dale Hunt ball and Tom came to the crease at first drop. Tom batted with several partners to make a nice close to a run a ball knock of 62 (67). Tom kept the pressure on throughout his innings with some nice boundary hitting and good quick running. Wests found a good bowler in Emily Hewitt who troubled us with some good stump to stump bowling. Wests struggled to find too many other reliable bowlers and there was a lot of bad balls especially after their first 10 overs for us to take advantage of. Wests did field well though and took some nice catches.
Besides Tom’s knock there wasn’t too many others worth mentioning. Lots of starts but not getting on with it. We managed to get to 180 after being all out in the 37th over, which we thought would be enough. I can see a lot of great batting potential in our young players. I think in time they will all knock up some nice scores. It is a matter of them just getting some confidence.
We started the bowling with our two young guns Ethan and Dan. They both did so well I left them on for 4 overs each. They both took wickets in their opening spells. We followed them up with a couple of veterans Dave and Joel who also bowled very well and kept Wests to a low run rate. We then bowled young Jedd and Bertie for a bowl for a couple of overs each. Jedd did very well with his off spin and caused a lot of trouble and was unlucky not to get a wicket. He had the impressive figures of 0/2 off 2. I will be making more use of him in the future.
After the 20 over mark Jedd came out to keep so we could unleash Grundo’s bowling. We got Grundo straight into it alongside Ethan for a start. Ethan had another great second spell keeping it tight and picking up another wicket. We bowled him out. We kept Grundo bowling and he just got better and better, so we kept bowling him. With every over he built the pressure by preventing them from scoring. Grundo ended up with the figures of 2/14 off 8. Unfortunately, we put down 3 catches off his bowling so it could have been so much better. Jedd did a pretty good job keeping and we will be using him again so we can continue to bowl Grundo.
We had a couple of loose overs made worse with some poor fielding from us. I put my hand up for being responsible for a few of these errors. Unfortunately, we let the opposition in with a sniff of victory in the last 6 overs. The last 3 overs were quite stressful with the opposition swinging at everything and finding the boundary. Dan was left to bowl the last over and managed it well despite having an attempted yorker pumped for 6. We also dropped 3 catches off this last over.
All in all I was very impressed with the team especially the bowling. While we were nice and alert and talkative in the field for the entire 40 overs we struggled to take catches. Tom Moscou however, took 3 from 3 catches, one of the them an absolute ripper.
I have given the 3 points to Tom for scoring 1/3 of our runs and the 3 catches which involved him in 3 of the 7 dismissals. Grundo is highly deserving of the 2 points with his great bowling spell. I was really impressed with young Ethan’s effort all round. I hope he got some confidence from his performance. He is a very good bowler and will only get better. He will be handy with the bat as well.
Big shout out to Wayne Muller that came and filled in for us. Wayne didn’t get a bat or bowl but did a great job in the field and umpiring at square leg.
3 – Tom Moscou
2 – Chris Grundon
1 – Ethan Rowe
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Uni Phoenix vs South’s Ravens C Grade:
Lost toss and sent into bat.
A loss of an early wicket was steadied with a partnership of 29 for the 2nd wicket. Another 19 runs were scored for the 3rd wicket before a collapse of 5 wickets reduced us to 7-64 in the 18th over. Dan Skillington put on 27 runs in a steady display as opener. A rarity for cricket was a diamond duck with a valuable lesson to slide the bat when making your ground. Michael King with 38 runs delivered a fine batting display to push us to a competitive total of 144 in 37 overs. He was ably supported by Lincoln Paroz (12) and Mitchell Skillington (21*) putting on partnerships of 32 for the 8th wicket and 48 for the 10th wicket.
Souths chased this total down in 30 overs, with 6 wickets to spare. One wicket a piece to Declan Else, Mitch Skillington, Ethan Payne and a fine caught and bowled with Jack Wiggins chasing hard on the follow through, were the highlights of the bowling.
A big thank you to John Wiggins and Steve Herden for umpiring and fielding.
3 – Michael King
2 – Mitch Skillington
1 – Dan Skillington
