Monday News – Rd 3 v Sydney – Day 2 + 1st Grade v Hawkesbury – T20

Not a weekend to remember for most of us. Third grade did their usual thing, when they are not thrashing teams they are fighting their way out of trouble and they recorded .a fantastic win on the weekend. As for the other grades, well, yet another reminder that we need to keep on working hard to get some points. 1st grade however continued their good T20 form with a win over Hawkesbury on Sunday.

Sydney consolidated their spot in the top 5 of the Club Championship whilst we are not horribly placed in 13th. It does feel like we are playing horrible cricket at times though but a  few games of solid cricket and results will see us start the climb.

4 Pines Brewery Player of the Week –  Sam Webber

Sam Webber has threatened with the bat in the past but up to the weekend had not yet pulled off a grade 50. He has taken a grade 5 for and he has taken plenty of catches and stumpings but a 50 was needed on the weekend and it was a 50 we got. Sam built an innings which slowly developed into a dominant stay at the crease in a pressure situation and he knocked out a fine 65no. He and Luke Mannel took Manly from a precarious 7-104 chasing 202 to win by 3 wickets and give us some CC points. Mitch Pugh with a gutsy century in 2nds can consider himself unlucky but I just couldn’t go past the match winning innings from Sam for this week’s award.

1st Grade – Manly 258 (T Cruickshank 98, A Baker 62, J Ritchie 44) lost to Sydney 5/260 (A Beadle 3/55, B Martin 2/85)

First Grade Report VS Sydney (Day 2)

Unfortunately we slumped to our 3^rd successive 2-day loss on Saturday. Starting the day with Sydney 1 for 20 odd we were hopeful of snaring a few early wickets to really put them on the back foot. The bowlers, in particular Ahillen Beadle (pictured), delivered and at one stage Sydney slumped to 5-115.  From here however the Sydney batsman Mosca and Maraziotis put their heads down and put together an unbeaten 145 run partnership to close out the game. Neither batsman took any risks on a very flat wicket and taught a few of our batsman a thing to two about disciplined batting. AB was the pick of the bowlers with excellent figures of 3-55 off 31 overs.

This obviously isn’t the start anyone in first grade is wanting or saw coming. However, all players are committed to turning things around with a stronger work ethic at training and a generally more disciplined approach. If we keep persevering results will start turning our way.

Jack Ritchie

First Grade T20 Manly 5/139 (T Cruickshank 33, J Ritchie 27) beat Hawkesbury 10/138 (L Edgell 2/17, N McLachlan 2/19)

We arrived to Bensons Lane on Sunday morning aiming to win our second consecutive T20 game and move a step closer to gaining a place in the T20 finals. Shank lost the toss on a hard wicket that looked like it might seam a bit and we were asked to field. In the first twelve overs opening bowlers Martin and McLachlan as well as first change bowlers Baker and Edgell all bowled superbly as wickets fell at regular intervals. The Hawks were 5-71 at one stage and we were well on top. However, the Hawks number seven batsman Langham then came out and blasted 40 runs off 14 balls to put the game on an even keel. We ended up restricting them to 138 with Edgell taking 2-17 off 4 and McLachlan taking 2-19 off 4.

We got off to a pretty solid start and all batsman chipped in along the way as we hit the winning runs with two balls to spare. Although this was a bit close for comfort, we were always in control and had plenty of wickets in hand. The main contributors with the bat were Cruickshank (33),Ritchie (27), Merchant (24) and Beadle (20*). This was a good solid win we’re looking forward to a big game next Sunday against North’s at Manly Oval.

Jack Ritchie

 

2nd Grade – Manly 186 (M Pugh 105) and 3/149 ( S Patterson 61, A Watkins 45, M Pugh 32) lost to Sydney 8 dec for 392 (D Marshall 3/114, J Badyari  2/64)

The Manly boys rocked up to Goddard Park with a mountain of work to do at 3/30 chasing 392 for the win.

A couple of big hundreds were the order of the day but was unfortunately it was not to be with wickets falling at regular intervals…

Greg Marks (21) built a solid partnership with Mitchell Pugh though unfortunately it wasn’t enough as Manly (186) fell well short of matching Balmain’s total.

Mitch Pugh (pictured) with an outstanding 105 was the highlight for the good guys with an innings that was all class and showed the fight required to score runs at this level. Pughy’s innings had it all scoring off both the front and back foot to all corners of the ground.

 After being rolled for 186 Manly was sent in again and it was a chance for the boys to show a bit of pride. Pughy (32 off 31), Watto (45 off 60) and Salt and Pepperson (61 off 44) made the most of the opportunity in the afternoon with Manly finishing on 3/149 ensuring Manly didn’t receive an embarrassing outright loss.

Being 3/9 at one stage overnight was always going to make the task extremely difficult when chasing such a large total and was what ultimately lost us the game. But as they say there is always next week so good luck to the boys in getting our season back on track this weekend against Parramatta.  

S&P

 

3rd Grade – Manly 7/202 ( S Webber 65no, L Mannel 44no, B Smith 26) beat Sydney 201 (L Mannell 4-44, C Little 3-30, R Farrell 2-43)

Starting the day at 0-8 the boys still needed to chase down 194 for a 2^nd victory in the 2012/13 season. After a brilliant display from the bottom 5 in the warm up touch footy game to deny the top 6 from a 3^rd straight win, Genie’s team chat had us all confident that we could pull of at least a 6 wicket win.The pitch looked good, hard with a few areas of green and we knew that after a hard fought 10 overs, with the loss of no wickets we’d be in the best position to grind our Sydney opposition out of the game.

Max and Jarrod walked out to the crease to pick up where they’d left off last week, but after a couple of ‘questionable’ decisions not going in our favour, max and jarrod had both departed for 1 a piece, with the scoreboard yet to tick over for the day. 
With centurion Jordan Daly and powerhouse Ed Burgess at the crease we still felt like we were in the box seat, but after a getting an absolute peach in the 7^th over Ed departed caught behind for 4.

Benny (Shmittabrah) Smith met Jordan at the crease and their partnership steadies the rocking manly ship to the score of 56 until Jordan was out caught for 23.

After what seems like hours at a cover-drive master class from Smitty, he was unlucky to smack a juicy half volley ankle height to cover, only a good catch would stop him. Sam Webber strode to the crease with a noticeable air of confidence and he went to work getting himself in. Unfortunately our great skipper was cleaned up by a low bouncing back of a length ball that left his off stump without a bail, and at the score at 6-67, we didn’t look like getting to 150 anytime soon.

From his dismissal came a partnership that lasted the rest of the session to tea, and with the score at 6-98 we didn’t look in terrible shape with both Sam Webber and Jacob Graham looking set at the crease.

Tea (affectionately known as ‘Smoko’ to the boys in the main grade) was yet again a fantastic spread, jam donuts were the real treat this week and disappeared from the table first. Jarrod was nowhere to be found.

 After tea things took a turn when Jacob couldn’t find enough middle to hit the ball with and holed out for 22 to cow corner. The score was now at 7-104.

 And that was the last wicket Sydney took. With a left arm chucker appealing for everything, and helping Sam and Mezza get their eyes in with boundary balls, the Manly boys started to have faith that we still had enough fight to get to the target of 202. Little by little the scoreboard ticked over, with boundaries coming from both batsman. Glorious straight drives from Mez and sizzling back foot shots from Swebbs gave us plenty to cheer about, and before we knew it Sam was raising his bat for a well fought, hard earned half century.

The Sydney team showed that they were letting things slip as heads went down as yet again Mez found the boundary with ease, and suddenly we were within 30 runs of what would be Manly’s only win of the round. With singles coming more frequently and more poor boundary balls being bowled, Sam and Mez rounded off the days play with ease, getting us to our required total of 202 with time to spare. A 90 odd run partnership got us home and the song was sung loud and proud with help from Scotty P and Lance.

A good gritty win for the boys the week, hard fought and everyone learned a lot of lessons in regard to their individual game. There’s a lot to do but we are in a good place was the message we took from Genies post game speech.

Go Manly.

Jacob



4th Grade – Manly 193 (L Grant 51, S Hole 46, J Boyer 30, T Beatty 27) and  7/92 ( B Falconer 37no) lost to Sydney 4/230 ( B. Wilson 2/40)

It didn’t quite go to plan on the Saturday. We talked about keeping it tight, building the pressure with maidens, no four balls and hold our chances. If we did all that we’d be in with a chance. We did none of that and were lucky to avoid outright. The bowlers tried on a flat wicket but there was no support in the field. Our ground fielding was average but it was our catching that resembled a Mike Pawley fielding clinic for seven year olds circa 1977. It was appalling. We got rid of an opener via a run out and their number 3 then enjoyed many chances. Many, many chances. In all fairness he hit the ball cleanly half the time for nine 4s and seven 6s but in between these shots we should have caught him approximately 10 times. The other opener also enjoyed the odd chance ( 2 in the slips come to mind) before he was fired for 76 off the very unlucky Luke Grant, although in this particulat instance, very lucky as he smashed it before being hit on the pad. The # 3 fell for 103 when Taylor Beatty showed the rest of us how to catch a ball. Brad Wilson got another wicket next ball and he got the pick of the figures with 2/40.

Sydney then declared at tea with a 40 run lead. For a while with globes notched up to Tully, Hole,Boyer and Gardiner it looked like it may be enough but a quick fire 20 from Evans, a well struck 25 from Beatty and some determination from Falconer (37no) and Alexander (0 no, but he played all the shots and was in fine form) was enough to see us limp to 7/92 when stumps were thankfully pulled. Boys, time to forget about winning games, comps, top 6 etc….let’s think about where we need to improve individually and apply this to training this week. Let’s not worry about trying to beat Parra this week, let’s just go out and apply the skills we have to the best of our ability at all times because what we saw today was not good enough. Wazza

5th Grade – Manly 133 (Trewartha 40) and 2/93 ( T Sky 27no, J McClintock 29no) lost to Sydney 233

The Manly boys knew they were going to have to bowl well and field well to put them back into the hunt. With great opening spells by Jonkers and Ash getting an early wicket, Knighty and Shredder came on and bowled good line and length but no luck was going our way.

Roscoe brought himself on and got a cheeky 3 wicket haul and the fruit specialist Harris got 4 wickets. Even a few overs by Ash bowling his leggys with his occasional bouncer couldn’t help the Manly boys get over the line.

We need to pick our heads up and improve to be ready for next week’s game.

 Will J