The Waratahs have started the 2013/14 season in a great position after winning 4 from 5 in round 1 vs UNSW at the completion of the round. 1st and 3rd grade dominated proceedings from ball one on Saturday, while 2nd grade and 5th grade showed the fight that is needed to do well, playing tough cricket to come away with close wins. 4th grade were the only team to not come away with a win despite a sparkling ton from the returning Rowan Hamman.
After Round 1 The Waratahs share top spot in the SCA Club Champions along with perennial rivals Sydney University. But the club is in a great position with a fantastic feeling and spirit all through the grades, as seen by the fantastic turnout and atmosphere at Saturday nights player party. The Waratahs are going to give the competition a big shake this year, or have the time of our lives trying.
Click here to view the Monday News from Day 1.
4 Pines Player of the week – Adam Gummer
Just like last week there were a number of players who could easily have taken out this week player of the week award. 4 tons across the weekend make it a tough choice. But ultimatley it is about players winning games for their team and making sure they are there at the end of play, and Adam Gummer did just that in batting through the innings in 3rd grade to score a fantastic 100 not out.
Gumms only played the last 4 games of last season due to travel, but has shown this pre-season what a good cricketer he is. Gumms knows his game as well as any lower grade batsman in the club, and showed his technique and patience in a batting masterclass. Adam’s hundred was actually his first in any type of cricket, as by his own admissions he was just never strong enough in junior cricket to score fast enough, always scoring 60* off 60 overs.
Special mention to Jordan Daly for his superb 100 in 2nd grades fantastic run chase, Lance Stewarts debut Manly ton in a great 3rd wicket partnership with Gummer, and Rowan Hamman’s subline tone in 4th grade,
1st Grade – Manly 339 (A. Beadle 104, L. Edgell 67, S. Webber 50, J. Cox 42) DEFEATED UNSW 110 (N. McLachlan 3/20, D. Babula 3/38) and 1 for 81
Day 2 started with UNSW needing about 310 more runs and the Manly boys needing 9 wickets for the win. Nick McLachlan started the day off well with an early wicket, however when UNSW two best bats came together and started building a partnership the match was on an even keel.
The plan was to be disciplined in our lines and lengths and to build pressure. The bowlers did this tremendously well on a belter of a pitch, and as a result the wickets started to fall regularly, particularly after the dismissals of Gowland and Dawson in consecutive overs. We ended up bowling them out for 110, a result not many people would have predicted at the beginning of the day, ourselves included. The wickets were shared amongst all the bowlers with Nicko’s and Dan “Babs” Babula taking 3 each and Mickey Edwards, SOK and AB all chipping in with 1 each.
We enforced the follow on, however on a flat pitch found wickets hard to come by. Babs picked up our sole wicket and with the score on 81 at tea the game was called.
Overall it was a great win and a great start to the season for the Manly boys. Special mention must be made to AB for his wonderful game changing century in the first innings and also to Sam Webber, who with 50 runs and 3 quality dismissals made an incredible first grade debut and proved to all that he has a long and successful first grade career ahead of him.
Jack Ritchie
2nd Grade – Manly 8 for 282 (J. Daly 115, B. Qureshi 42, J. Walter 31) DEFEATED UNSW 277 (M. Visser 6 for 51, L. Disserens 4 for 87)
2nd Grade arrived at a typically picturesque Manly Oval and a flat wicket similar to before but with “a little less grass than last week” – whatever that meant. Despite night watchman Mickey Visser causing a change to the touch footy teams for the warm up, it was ultimately an appalling refereeing decision that ended the game with the bottom 5 getting a rare win.
Having batted superbly after conducting a fast bowling Master Class last week, the 2nd over of the day unfortunately saw Mickey depart, snicking one to 2nd slip without adding to his overnight tally of 14. This brought Max Burgess to the crease, joining Jarrod Walter who looked in great touch. Together the pair put on 38 for the 3rd wicket with both playing outstanding shots to all parts. The pair literally drove off (pardon the pun) the opening bowlers perhaps causing spin to dominate most of the day. Having looked so at ease at the crease all day Walter was unluckily bowled for 31, with the ball jamming between bat and pad before rolling back onto the stumps, and bringing Jordan Daly to the crease.
With this wicket things started to look a little tense, but some ordinary bowling and sensible batting meant the score was always on the move. Just as the momentum began to shift back our way, however, we lost Max (21) ending a 60 run partnership with the score at 4 – 121 just before drinks and bringing the debutant “Blinky/Bubble-O” Bill Qureshi to the crease. After starting somewhat hesitantly Bill quickly found his rhythm and with the (brief) re-introduction of pace after lunch smoked probably the best cover drive of the day, among other great shots, on his way to a pivotal 42. This partnership took the Manly boys past Tea and to 235 – only 43 short of victory. Despite this, it wasn’t until we lost 4-8 in a chaotic few overs that we realised we hadn’t actually won yet. Bill’s great innings was ended by the first ball from the leggy that actually turned noticeably, while Jordan was LBW to the old straight one that just didn’t.
This brought Taylor Beatty and skipper Ryan “Doochman” Bonnor to the crease, and all of a sudden 40 runs were looking a lot more difficult than they had 5 minutes ago. The umpiring had been of an disconcertingly high standard all day compared to last week so when Dooch was hit on the hip at the wrong end there was a certain feel of inevitability about it. Only minutes later, having batting well for his 5, Taylor was found contemplating the possible effects of a slight diminution in the wicket’s grass levels and padded up in front as things continued to deteriorate.
Just as things started to get really concerning, in a great show of maturity and focus, young debutant James “Rabs” Boyer and Corrie Boss withstood an immense amount of pressure to knuckle down and knock off the last 35 runs. Rabs finished up on 10* having played a few majestic sweeps and Bossy on 24* after finishing the game in style with a maximum onto the bowling greens.
Overall it was a fantastic team performance, set up by Luke Dizzy Disserens (4-87) and Micky Visser (6-51) the week before. It must be said that there’s still a lot of room for improvement though, especially considering that they dropped a number of fairly regulation catches at crucial moments that could have drastically altered the course of the match. Thanks to everyone who came down to help finish off tea as well as support throughout out the day. I’d also like to say Thanks For Coming to debutant Jarrod Rawlings, whose sporadic assistance with the sightscreens was appreciated. Anyways there aren’t many better ways to start off the season than with a run chase of that size and more importantly a win, so bring on North Sydney!!
Jordan Daly
3rd Grade – Manly 2 for 250 (A. Gummer 102*, L. Stewart 100*) DEFEATED UNSW 245 (S. Alexander 5 for 56)
So the day really started the night before, when skipper Craig “Genie” Little msgs the boys to tell them that with all the Navy stuff going on, we should leave earlier in order to still be there at 10 for the 11:15 start. And as seen by myself and Lance “Digits” Stewart, Genie was as far off as possible, as we met at the ground at the early time of 9:20am, having taken less time than the week before to get to the ground. Good one Genie.
Following another quality warmup and controversial touch footy game whereby Sam Alexander could not help but try get himself in the action, and the call of Gummer of ‘next try wins’ leading to another victory to the far superior Top 5, was the throw downs, not much else to be done before a day of batting.
So from 0/2 overnight, Adam Gummer and Matt Cole started off well, reaching the first milestone for 0/50, before Coley had one cut away to get caught behind for 27. Fazz came in to steady the ship, however after a good start managed to miss a straight one (insists his bat caught in his back pad) for 9, bringing digits to the crease. This was the start of something special. In the following 40 overs, gumms and digits batted with maturity and class to compile a massive winning partnership of more than 200 runs, finishing 103* and 100* respectively. It can only be described as a fantastic example of application and positive batting, with UNSW not looking in the game at all. Despite some drama leading into the final few overs of the day, where Gumms needing 10 out of 20 to win, then 5 from 10, some advice from Crossy lead to the manly boys batting a few overs past the winning total in order for both of the boys to reach their debut hundreds for the club. A fantastic effort by the both of them, leaving poor Sammy Gainsford sitting in the pads at next in for about 3 hours. Was a great day to watch, hopefully we can see many more games like this in the main grade!
Matt Cole
Gumms and Digits after their unbeaten 3rd wicket partnership and matching tons
4th Grade – Manly 248 (R. Hamman 116, Ja. Graham 45) DEFEATED BY UNSW 289 (S. Hole 3 for 67, B. Wilson 3 for 43)
If last week was somewhat satisfying, this week was dissapointing. Greeted by a pitch and outfield which were both slightly slower than last week, we knew solid contributions from everyone would be needed to get us home.
Unfortunately only 2 batsmen made major contributions. Rowan Hamman, played one of the finest innings ever seen at Grahams, bringing local dog-lovers to their knees in awe. A majestic display of strokeplay, with shots all round the wicket, Rowan was in total control for 2 and half hours for 116, with 11 x 4s and 2 glorious straight sixes, the second to bring up his century. Despite losing an early wicket, Rowan dominated totally and shared in a 66 run partnership with Sam Hole (15) and a 70 run partnership with Liam Tully (18).
From 2-151 we lost 4-33 to leave us with a lot of work to do at 6-184.
Jacob Graham (45) combined patience with some powerful shots, and figured in 2 steadying partnerships with Gus Reid (15), and then Simon “Cliffy” Lyon (9), which gave us a sniff and took us to 245. However it was not to be, the last 3 wickets falling in a hurry to see us all out.
Not far away….but not enough contributions on the day.
Well done to all other grades, a sensational start to the season none-the-less.
Ross Trewartha
5th Grade – Manly 7 (dec) for 355 (T. Poole 98, T. Kelly 87, B. D’Arcy 57) DEFEATED UNSW 0 for 17
We knew that it might have taken all day to get the points. We were prepared for the hard slog. That’s exactly what we got on day 2 v UNSW.
The pitch was flat and the ball did nothing in the air. All the Manly bowlers had to think about line, length and building pressure. In the first session we didn’t do that. They got off to a good start and the pressure was on us instead. Ben “Punter” Falconer was the best, unlucky not to bag a couple, with edges going just wide or dropped.
Some tight flighted ortho’s from Dave “Ray Bright” Farrell got us going, but we were still not where we wanted to be at tea.
A good talk in the sheds about bowling plans and batsmen’s weaknesses had us all on the same page for the afternoon session. Bowlers were rotated from both ends looking for breakthroughs and they came slowly. Will Outred, Hamish Ferguson and Bright bowled to plans and were rewarded. Each new batsmen appeared to have the same bottom hand technique as the last.
Greg “Doug McGrath” Boyer behind the stumps proceeded to give each batsmen a few coaching tips, suggesting to all on the field that the off side was going to be where they would struggle.
Great catching in the covers/point from Toby Poole, Joe Graham and Billy Darcy (screamer) proved the point and reinforced our plans. The game was there for either side, but they only needed 4 an over and we still had a few to get.
The turning point for me was Ben Kittlety’s last spell. On debut Ben gave all he had in about 10 straight overs of sustained line and length bowling. 3 wickets followed and gave us the sniff we needed. It went down to the wire but we snuck home. Will taking a great c&b to finish things off.
All the support from 3rd grade and 1’s was superb and really made the finish and team song one to remember.
Dave Farrell
5th grade going crazy in the sheds with the 3rd and 1st graders
