4 Pines Player of the week – Zac Trewartha
Zac nearly saw 5th grade home with a barnstorming spell to see him finish with 5/8 from 10 overs. Looking gone at 2/47 chasing 66, Zac produced a terrific spell to have Sydney in a lot of bother before they limped home 7 down. He also happened to top score with 11 but we won’t go into that too much. Well done mate, keep this going into the finals please!
1st Grade – Sydney 6/161 (D Babula 3/37, L Diserens 2/23) beat Manly 159 ( L Edgell 38, T Cruickshank 27)
First grade had a lacklustre day against Sydney on Saturday. After being sent in on a deck that was seaming around a bit, we put ourselves in a good position with Edgell and Crosthwaite taking the score to 1-70. Unfortunately we failed to kick on from here with a few batsmen failing to convert starts and we were bundled out for 159.
Things didn’t start well with the ball with both Sydney’s opening bats dismissed off no balls. In the end we never really looked like winning and they passed us 6 down thanks to some late Luke Diserens wickets. Dan Babula was again the pick and kept us in the game with his consistent bowling. He took 3-37 off 15 and led from the front as he has been doing all season.
The loss has put us back in the pack a bit. In the lead up to this game there was way too much talk about this being a season defining game and talk of its influence on the final standings. All this talk simply resulted in us putting more pressure on ourselves than what was necessary. We were far too focussed on where the opposition were coming on the table rather than just staying in the present and concentrating on ourselves. With two games still to play we need to stop thinking about finals and where everyone else is coming on the table and just concentrate on ourselves and what is happening in the here and now. The rest is out of our control and will take care of itself.
Mitch Pugh and Jarrod Walter opened up and looked to be on track to setting a steady platform for the Manly Boys, untill Pughy was unfortunately caught for 4. This brought Aiden Baker to he crease who put on a sterling performance for the Tah’s. However, wickets began falling around Baker, with Walter caught behind for 18, Webber soon after for 1 and Bilal not long after for 7. Baker finding some trumendous form in the middle, comfortably dealing with the sydney bowling attack, brought up his half-century and took the Manly Boys past 80.
Next to the crease was the veteran Ross Trewartha, who unfortunately fell for 5 bringing the skipper to the middle. Ryan Bonnor however, fell for an unfortunate 2 and John Warne who followed came and went without scoring. Looking to be in some trouble as the Manly boys were 7/100, step up Ashdeep Virdi. Putting on a match winning performance Ash took to the sydney bowling attack with ease. With some super stroke play, along with Aiden Baker, the 2 put on a fantastic partnership when Baker fell for a valuable 85 leaving the score at 8/160.
Mickey Visser joined Ash to knock off the final 70 runs with ease. Ashdeep earning a fantastic 64 not out and Mickey hitting a superb 34 not out. An oustanding performance by the lower order and also Aiden for digging the boys out of a large hole that they had found themselves in. Special mention to Ash for his match winning performance with both ball, but especially the bat.
6pts Go Manly!!!
3rd Grade – Sydney 101 ( L Grant 3/24, R Davis 2/22, C Little 4/25) lost to Manly 3/105 (A Gummer 40, L Stewart 33no)
After dominating on day one, 3’s turned up on the hunt for 6 points. Sydney resumed at 8-81 as the Alexander’s opened the bowling from both ends. Sydney scratched their way to 90 without the loss of their 9th wicket, when skipper Craig Little came on to bowl. He got an immediate breakthrough after drawing the edge and a superb catch in the slips from Ryan. An over or two later he struck again, bowling the opposing captain. Little ended with 4 wickets for the innings. Sydney could only manage 101 thanks to tight bowling and some great slips catching last week.
Our openers Adam and Jarrod went out to bat with the intention of passing Sydney none down. Unfortunately, Jarrod was undone by a stiff LBW decision early which brought Ryan to the crease. Both he and Gummer looked settled, steering us to 1-25. However, just as things were looking comfortable, Ryan can caught in the gully. At 2-25, Lance came out to bat and together with Adam, did an outstanding job. They combined patients and stroke making to ensure that this wasn’t going to be one of those nervous run chases. The highlights were some delicate sweeps from Gums and powerful drives from Lance. As the umpires called for tea, the mighty Tahs were 2-74 with Lance on 20 and Adam unbeaten on 40.
Straight after tea, Adam was the victim of the break, dismissed without scoring. His 40 put us in a dominant position but he was disappointed not to be there at the end. One red head was replaced by another as Jordan came out to bat in 3’s for the first time this season. From the first ball he faced he looked comfortable especially against the spinner, hitting a number of great cut shots. Lance (33*) kept plugging away from the other end and showed toughness to get through a difficult period at the crease. Batting for 100 minutes showed great maturity.
Suddenly, with a lofty blow down the ground from Jordan (20*), we’d passed Sydney just three down and captured another 6 points! It was a clinical performance, especially against a top 2 side. The victory was set up by the bowlers on day one and the top order did well making sure they got the job done. Bring on Fairfield next week! Up the Tahs!
3 points – Craig
2 points – Luke
1 point – Lance
LG
4th Grade – Manly 9/269 dec ( R Hamman 82, S Hole 60, W Evans 25) beat Sydney 154 ( W Evans 3/21, B Wilson 3/39, C Boss 3/45) and 7/137 ( N Toomey 4/36)
4th grade had a very good day’s cricket with our batting, bowling, fielding and attitude all tip top. The wicket was well prepared with enough grass to keep the bowlers interested. We started at 3/90 needing 154. Rowan (82) was not at his fluent best in the overcast conditions and the wicket playing quite slowly as it turned out. Sam Hole (60) on the other hand revelled in the conditions and looked solid as a rock and busy too. Rowan did not quite get onto a ball from the wily swing bowler and was dismissed at 4/145. Cole (10)ensured we did not have any troubles getting past the score and looked good until he got out in a fairly customary manner, via a mis hit drive back to the same bowler. Boss (5) missed a straight one to make it 6/187. Under insruction to bat aggressively to build up a lead by tea Hole then played across one to make it 7/202, Josh (11) had a swipe and was out of his ground, Evans (25) hit the ball cleanly, especially 2 nice sixes down the ground but was bowled by a ball just flicking the stumps. This put us 9 down on the stroke of tea with just 34 overs bowled by Sydney. As luck would have it we got to face up to 30 mins more with the 9 down rule and this suited us allowing Brad (17no) and Nick (11no) to continue their strong form to put on another 29 runs in 5 overs before declaring.
After out sing song for Nick’s 23rd at tea (and what a tea it was, just the frankfurts missing to make it perfect) we had 42 overs at them with a 115 run lead. Brad (1/16) got us off to the perfect start with an LBW first ball. The wicket was benign and Sydney had no interest in scoring runs. We were a bowler down with Bossy not getting through last week unfortunately. Despite these obstacles we kept at it. Sam rediscovered his form (1/38 with very attacking fields in place) and created chances nearly every over in his 12 overs. Evans (1/24) beat the bat often but it was Nick once again who got us in with a sniff via his great second spell taking 3 wickets in his two overs back to finish with 4/36 off 13. Our fielding was excellent with Tom Kaye taking a good catch at cover point and Josh a good running catch.. Sydney limped past our total and maybe a bit regretfully I then gave a few bowlers a bowl which resulted in 20 easy runs for Sydney. Cole got an edge but was called for a back foot no ball and Rowan even had a bowl and created a chance but poor communication led to an easy drooped catch.
All up a great win, leaving us in 2nd place 2 behind Sutherland but plenty of sides just behind us..
Warren Evans
5th Grade – Manly 66 lost to Sydney 7/67 ( Z Trewartha 5/8, W Outred 2/12)
We needed to take very early wickets and Zach supplied those having them 2/9 with Skittles (Ben) giving good support down the other end. Sydney were cruising along at 2/47 before Zach came back on and produced a cracker of a spell ending up with 5/8 (10). Unfortunately Sydney went past the score with 3 wickets in hand and decided to pull up Stumps.
Jake
