4 Pines Player of the week – Jarrod Rawlings 60
1st Grade – Mosman 8/364 (D. Babula 2/41, A. Beadle 2/84) beat Manly 251 (C. Merchant 69, T Crucikshank 40, J Cox 41)
First grade unfortunately suffered their first loss of the two day season on Saturday. Chasing the large total of 8-364 declared, we didn’t get off to the best of starts being 3-21. Shank and AB consolidated to take the score to 86 with both looking in ominous touch. Unfortunately AB departed just before lunch for 18 and Shank just after lunch for a well made 60.
At 5-111 Napper and Coxy came together and both batted beautifully. After initially taking their time getting their eye in, both got on top of the opposition and played some wonderful strokes. They were well set and really getting after the bowlers when unfortunately there was a running between wickets mishap and Coxy departed for a well made 41. Napper continued on and ended up falling for a quality 70, continuing his great run of form.
Our tailenders dug in with Babs making a fighting 20. Unfortunately the Mosman score was too much and we were eventually bowled out over 100 runs short for 251.
At the end of the day we were outplayed in all facets by the Whales, however we will learn from our mistakes and come back stronger next week.
Rocking up to a sodden Allan Border oval, 2’s were anxious to know the severity of the soaked green top that we thought awaited us under the covers. To much suprise the pitch was still in very good nick, hard and flat apart from a slight wet patch and the bowlers run-up completely flooded at the same end. So once the captains finally agreed with the umpires, we were to abandon Lunch and start at 12:30 with only the loss of several overs. Also to be mentioned, was the first game I’ve seen a rubber bowling mat used on the bowlers run-up during play, but it got us on the field with a real oportunity to make a game against Mosman chasing 313.
Rawlings and Walter resumed where they left off last weekend, 0/11 after 5 overs, with Jarrod R striking some superb shots. Unfortunately, Jarred W recieved a decent rock from the Mosman opening bowler and was bowled for 4, which brought Gumms to the crease. Gummer and Jarrod put on a handy little partnership in the early overs, with Jarrod scoring at a rapid rate reaching 50 in the blink of an eye. Gumms supporting Jarrod, played equally well and was unfortunate to be bowled for 18, leaving the Tah’s 2/80. Pughy joined Rawlings in the middle, but only for a short stint. Jarrod tried to force one over the top to the pace bowler and miss-qued it to a pair of hands, a shot probably not needed given the way he was scoring, but nevertheless a very well constructed 60 for the team, 3/112.
Jordan Daly decided he’d had enough of his Uni exam and turned up in time to stride out to the middle with Pughy. Mitch demonstrated some great stroke play off his pads to the pace bowlers, however, once the spinner was brought on Pughy just couldn’t resist and holed out for 28. This brought Bilal to the crease who battled with Jordan to get to tea. Jordan did especially well after copping a short one from their opening quick that smashed his grill cutting into his top lip. However, Jordy stood up and showed some real courage to grind his way through a tough period, leaving us 4/139 at the break.
With 47 overs left in the day it would certainly be a challenge, but the main objective was to conserve wickets for the end, by which we could have a real crack at the Mosman total. This was not to be, 1st ball after tea Bilal nicked off for 3 and then the skipper himself, after speaking to the team about not losing wickets in clumps, had a brain explosion leaving the straightest ball in history onto his off-stump the very next delivery. 6/139, two balls after tea was not where we wanted to be at. Taylor met Jordy at the crease and the two batted well together, building a valuable partnership until the unfortunate run-out of Jordan for 20, 7/153.
LG joined Taylor, who was finding some good form in the middle as the two constructed a 40-odd run partnership between themselves. Taylor was the next victim to the Mosman bowling attack, trying to pull the opening quick and regrettably skying it to mid-wicket for a solid 32, 8/193. Visser the next man in was out for 0 after facing not many and Dizzy, after almost mirroring the skipper first ball, not out for 0 with LG the last man out for 15.
All out for 195, certainly a dissapointing end for 2’s with our first loss of the season. A brief disscussion in the changing rooms after the game confirmed that we didn’t apply ourselves with our batting at the critical stages of the game and that our fielding in the last session of last week let us down. We got ourselves out more often than not and should have gone on to score a lot more especially on a reasonably flat wicket. Lets work hard at training boys, put this dissapointing feeling behind us and be prepared to fire up and get back into some winning form come Saturday’s game against Campbeltown Camden.
Oh yeah, at least one good thing did come out of the day… we’ve finally got rid of Jordy’s Gray Nicholls helmet.
Cheers,
Sam W
3rd Grade – Mosman 222 (N. Toomey 6/57, R Davis 3/54) and 5/49 ( S. Gainsford 2/7, C Little 2/17) beat Manly 143 (A.Virdi 29, S.Gainsford 27, M.Burgess 27, R. Trewartha 27)
In an overall pretty disappointing day at atmosphere park, the main grade failed to pick up any points against the whales. After a very good performance last week with the ball, we needed a further 180 runs for victory after being 0-40 overnight.
Maxy and rosco didn’t make much more inroads into their overnight scores, both scoring 27, Maxy was pretty unlucky after bump balling it to first gripper. Four of the top six snicked off on a deck that was probably in favour of mosman compared to last weeks pitch. This meant we were in trouble and had lost 4-20 odd and were now 4-60. Sammy Gainsford then batted extremely well in tough conditions, griding away an extremely important 30. Sam was partnered with ashdeep for a bulk of our innings who blasted a quick fire 30 in true ashy style, giving it to the weak opening bowler in the mean time who had some terrible chat.
Unfortunately ashy got out just as things were looking optimistic for the tahs at the score of 5-110. Jimmy came in and got a shocker from the umpy and was fired. Ronnie then came in and batted well, he and Sammy put on a 30 run partnership but once again as we started getting our hopes up another wicket fell and Sammy was out at 8-140. We then crumbled and were all out for 143. During this decisive period a certain captain decided it was fair and reasonable to rip in and abuse Sammy and the other batsmen with pretty uncalled for comments. It is noted that this bloke is onto his third grade club – must be well liked!
We then went out for a bowl under Jeannies orders and had 28 overs to regain the momentum we had established throughout the start of the year. We achieved this by taking 5-30 odd, the seamers bowled very good and consistent bowling with very few bad balls. A few lighthearted and extremely subtle words were also flying around out in the field directed at the batsmen but all in all was a positive finish to the day with momentum leading into next week. There were a lot of positives to take out of the day and I’m sure the main grade will bounce back next week.
Ryan
4th Grade – Manly 249 (R. Hamman 108, M.Cole 30) v Mosman 1/29
4th grade were washed out early on Saturday. The groundsman obviously had better things to do. I had a look at pitch when we were due to play and it was playable. In fact a belter and whole surroundings dry. Inexplicable. Refer to video clip above (CLICK HERE) if you want to see 3m25s of excitement!
5th grade had a very disappointing loss on Saturday, with no batsman really standing up to the challenge of a 300+ target.
Turning up to Mike Pawley in the moring saw plenty of rain, a long and wet outfield and a deck that had wet patches all through it. However 2-3 hours of constant sun dried the pitch out pretty well, and we were able to start an hour late with no loss of overs.
Unfortunatley 3 of our first 4 dismissals were bad cricket shots, the other being a terrible LBW decision to the unlucky Liam Tulley, and we were facing a long day at 4-30. Jake Carden and Toby Poole put together a handy 60 run partnership to turn the tide Manly’s way, with Toby in particular hitting some fnatastic covers drives. However Toby’s dismissal was followed by Jake next over, and the game was essentially lost at 6 for 100. Our lower order battled hard and we were not far from forcing a draw with our last pair, Murphy and Falconer, showing how it’s done, but Jack getting bowled resulted in us loosing the game.
While we lost 50-70 runs through the slow outfield compared to last week, at the end of the day our top order batsman did not have the patience to stay at the crease for long periods of time, and we were thoroughly outplayed by Mosman. Alot of hard work ahead for the boys.
