Monday News – Rd 2 v ND’s – Day 2 + 1st Grade & PGs v Farfield – T20

A tough Saturday for the Waratah’s was rounded off with an amazing win for the Manly boys on Sunday in what is being seen as a kick start to the season for the Manly club.

Saturday saw the 2nd week of round 2 begin, with all grades bar 4th grade playing 120 overs for the day to make up for Day 1 being washed out. Unfortunately our 2nd grade side were not able to get onto the field at all in the game, unfortunately the only game in Sydney Grade Cricket that did not bowl a ball in either week 1 or week 2. The Northern Districts Club did all they could to get us on, but the gods were against both teams, and we all left feeling a little deflated.

With 3rd grade also drawing, and losses in 1st grade, 4th grade, and a last ball loss in 5th grade , we failed to win any Club Championship points on Saturday, despite the best effort of many.

And so to Sunday. Our PG’s side played gallantly against a strong Fairfield side, and looked to have it won in the last few overs. Needing 9 to win off the last over, Fairfield were able to hit a six first ball, and it was easy pickings for them from there, winning with 2 wickets and 2 balls to spare.All of this made 1st Grade win even better. Chasing 176, we were never really in it bar a good partnership of 86 between Tim Cruickshank and Jack Ritchie. Always behind the eight ball, it was Cubby’s power hitting (yes you heard that right) that got us home in the end.

4 Pines Brewery Player of the Round – Jack Ritchie

What an amazing round for Jack Ritchie. Opening up on Saturday after being sent in by ND’s on a tough deck, Cubbyshowed the application that the other batsman couldn’t by sticking around for 30 odd runs from the first 30 odd overs of the innings until unleashing some great batting to, along with Aidan Baker(62), steer the 1st grade to a respectable total. Cubby ended up on 128, just short of his highest score in grade cricket.

Cubby then continued his fantastic form on Sunday by single handedly keeping the Manly boys in the T20 game against Fairfield, blasting 84 from 49 delivery’s, including 6 amazing bombs. For these 2 efforts, Cubby wins this Round 4 Pines Brewery Player of the Round award.

1st Grade – Manly 9 dec for 227 (Ritchie 128, Baker 62) lost to NDs 4 for 229

Unfortunately our 1st grade side made it 2 loses from 2 starts in the 2 day competition on Saturday, going down to Northern Districts by 6 wickets. The result was fairly one sided in the end, with the Northern Districts bowlers going through our quality top order by having us 6-30 in no time at all. It was always a win the toss and bowl type of track, and it was doing a fair bit early, but full credit to the ND’s bowlers who at the end of the day too good for our top order.

So at 6 for 30 it was looking grim. Aidan ‘Flat’ Baker and Jack ‘Cubby’ Ritchie then came together a steadied to ship. Cubby hit 34 runs off the first 35 overs of the day, such was his determination, and blasted his next 100 odd runs in no time at all. It was an innings of determination, patience and technique. Ben Martin went so far as to say it was the finest innings he had seen in grade cricket. Not far behind him was Flat. He worked the ball around well, supported Jack when needed, and ultimately showed he is a class batsman with his fighting 62. He was only bought undone by a runout, other than that is batting was fantastic.

We declared at 9-224 with momentum on our side. But it wasn’t to have any impact on the rest of the game, as ND’s coasted to the target 4 down with plenty of overs spare. The wicket had flattened out, yes, but ultimately the bowling wasn’t good enough, and we didn’t have enough tricks up our sleave. ND’s batted well and the day wasn’t to be ours.

A slow start to the 2 day season, yes, but our first grade side is too good not to come back, and will be in the winners list shortly.


1st Grade Sunday T20 – Manly 5 for 179 (Ritchie 84, Cruickshank 38, Cleary 28no) defeated Fairfield 6 for 176 (Ritchie 2-29)

Sunday’s 1st round T20 game at Manly Oval was an absolute cracker. T20 cricket is probably over exposed these days, but the match at Manly Oval showed it can be as entertaining and exciting as any sporting contest around. Full credit to both teams who played good, tough, hard, fair cricket all game. A great crowd of 1,000 people turned up to watch a great day of cricket

Winning the toss, Fairfield chose to bat first, with a top quality Ben Martin nut getting rid of danger man Grant Lambert for 5. Another early wicket to Ahillen Beadle had us rocking, however some poor bowling and good batting from captain Anthony Clarke saw Fairfield right back in the game. Clarke received good support from Doran, Williams and Attard, reaching 6 for 176 off their 20 overs. Around 50 runs were taken off the last 3 overs which really bought the game back into Fairfields favour.

Jack Ritchie and Andrew Watkins opened up the batting, with Watto looking impressive until a mistimed drive went straight the mid on. Cubby was then joined by Tim Cruickshank, and the 2 went on a rampage, putting on an 86 run partnership in 11 overs. However, the wicket of Cruickshank, Merchant and Beadle in quick succession put the pressure on the Manly boys, and something amazing was needed, with about 8-9 an over required for the last 7 overs.

That is when Cubby went crazing. Surprising everyone in the ground, he went on a bomb rampage, hitting spinner, medium pacer, and fast bowler alike onto the road and into the grand stand. Well supported by Mitch ‘Beaver’ Cleary, we were back in the game.

Cubby departed with 15 needed for a win, and an Andrew Lowe diamond duck (he was coming back for a second just to get Beaver on strike, great team work Lowey) bought Aidan ‘Flat’ Baker to the crease with 14 needed. Beaver smacked a few boundaries before it came down to 9 runs to win off the last over, and then 1 to tie, 2 to win off the final ball. Flat was on strike, and the entire Fairfield side was inside the circle. Flat got down on one knee, calmly hit the winning runs down to the fine leg boundary, and the crowd went nuts….. we had won our first game of the season, but only just. Onward and upward.

Up the Tahs

2nd Grade – Manly drew with NDs – No play due to rain 


3rd Grade – Manly 7-201 (Rawlings 42, M Burgess 35, Graham 34, Webber 30no) drew with NDs 6 for 168 (Farrell 3-42, Little 2-28)

With last week being washed out, the game was reduced to 120 over’s in the day. We turned up to find a pitch with a nice big wet patch on a good length so the umpires decided to start us an hour later than predicted so we started play at 10:30. We lost the toss and were sent in to bat on a difficult wicket.

Max Burgess and Edward Burgess started us off and they were able to stick it out and see off the new ball. Unfortunately Eddy got out on 11. Then Max and Jarrod Rawlings put on a good partnership with Max (35) and Jarrod (42). Jordan (16), and Jeanie both chipped in. Then Jacob Graham and Sam Webber both batted well until Jacob was run out on 30. Sam then was supported by Matt Alexander (5) . Sam Webber ended up on 30* not out. Jeanie then declared on 8 for 201 off 60 over which gave Northern Districts 52 over’s to bat.

It was then our time to bowl and Jeanie and Luke Mannell opened the attack with Jeanie getting their opening batsmen early for the to be 1-3. Jeanie ended up taking 2 wickets , Luke Mannell didn’t end up getting a wicket but bowled really well. Ryan Farrell (3 wickets) and Matt Alexander then took over and bowled well to make Northern Districts start worrying about the amount of wickets they were losing in a short amount of time. Jordan Daly then got a great run out to make us think that we were in a really good chance of winning the game as they were 6 down.

Northern Districts then decided not to go for the win so they blocked out the last couple of over’s needing 60 off 5 with 4 wickets in hand (boring cricket). With ND’s needing 32 runs off the last over Jeanie decided to give Jarrod Rawling’s a bowl and he bowled a maiden to finish the day off on a high.

The game resulted in a draw, thanks to Scotty Patterson, Tom Kaye, Tom Skye and Lance Stewart on coming down and supporting us. 
Also a great thanks to BP (Brett Prenpase) and Wrighty for their support throughout the whole day with the warm up and drinks.

Sammy G.


4th Grade – Manly 97 (L Anderson 32, C Gardiner 26) and 92 lost outright to NDs 6-100 dec and 3-90

After an unfortunate week one the boys were looking to bounce back and take second innings points. Things have just seemed to work against us this year, but as they say when you’re playing good cricket the luck seems to go your way. We haven’t been playing good cricket. This continued first ball of the day when Butch was fired, given out caught behind after he smashed his pad. The skipper followed after a quick 11 but that triggered a collapse to have us 4-13. Wow not again! Other than a smart 20 from Chris ‘Dingo’ Gardiner and another gritty 13 not out from Sammy Alexander, there was a lack of commitment at the crease and it showed as we were skittled for 92.

This left ND’s only 90 to win outright of 27 overs. To our credit again we bowled extremely well showing the talent is there but a lack of application with the bat isn’t giving us opportunities to win games.  Brad Wilson and Sheeds both bowled well without much luck. Brad’s length was superb throughout his first spell. It was Benny Falconer who got the breakthrough when ND’s were on about 30 after a sharp catch from Jimmy up to the stumps. Then Sammy, who bowled his best spell for the season got one in the next over. Again Butch took a great catch. There was still hope. Then LG came on to bowl and took a sneaky wicket in his first over after an acrobatic effort from Dingo. This brought their skipper and our old mate Dan Donaldson to the crease. Unfortunately we couldn’t make any further breakthroughs but there were chances that just didn’t go to hand. With 2 overs to go ND’s passed the total and got the outright win.

It’s never a good feeling getting smashed 2 games in a row. But let’s hope we can use this as a bit of motivation going forward.

Up the Tahs!

LG


5th Grade – Manly 8 dec for 182 (Trewartha 46, Wickham 38, Fraser 25no) lost to NDs 9 for 183 (Evans 2-17, Glassock 2-24, Knight 2-27)

With 120 overs in the day, we were confident we could get a win. Losing the toss, we were sent in on a softish wicket. Harry Rogers fell early to one that popped, before Benny Wickham (38) tore into any lose. Putting on 79 with Roscoe, we were looking good at 1-93 before we lost 4 quick wickets to leave us at 5-120.

At lunch our goal was to make 180 off 55 overs and then declare. Thanks to a quick 15 from Jonkers and 17 from Andrew Glassock (Sac) and a steady 25no from Jake Fraser, we reached 8-182, leaving NDs 65 overs to reach the target.

The pitched settled considerably, but still had the odd trick. NDs started conservatively before Sac took 2 wickets in 3 balls. With the wily Wazza Evans taking 2 at the other end, NDs were 4-40 at the stunning run rate of 1.5 an over.

At this point the young NDs opener dug in even more….. And didn’t come out until after tea, didn’t even play a shot, for 20 overs, despite numerous bowling changes and 9 fielders in catching  positions. At one point Benny Wickham and Jake Fraser were warming up!! After throwing him a few runs he came out swinging and with 10 overs left they were still 4 down with only 35 to get.

A couple of panic run-outs, including a magnificent pick-up and throw from Frase, some great death bowling from Dan Schroder (1-31) and Justin Knight (2-27)….. and the Tahs were all of a sudden sneaking back into the game.

With Donny Dollars working furiously on the calculator the last over started at 6.30pm with NDs 8-179. Knighty knocked over their skipper first ball, and followed with a couple of play and misses, a huge shout for LBW, and a near run out.

With 1 ball left and scores tied. Number 11 took his swipe and sliced it over point for the winning run.

So we were denied, but we had nothing to be dissapointed about… We’d most of the running, played all day for a result and came up short by the smallest possible margin.  Everyone put in and I couldn’t have asked for any more from the boys.

Roscoe


PG’s – Manly 7 for 125 (Beattie 36) lost to Fairfield 8 for 131 (Beattie 2-24, McLachlan 2-24)

Turning up to Manly oval on a beautiful sunday morning saw the manly boys in good spirits. Playing against a strong Fairfield side, captain Mitch Pugh elected to bat first on a wicket that amassed over 450 runs the day before! Pughy and Lowey began the Tah’s innings with a steady start facing out a lethal first grade attack. We had a slower start than anticipated but then entered Taylor Beatty who showed some great ticker getting the run-rate flowing. This was followed by a short cameo from debutant Jordan “Ranga” Daly who closed the Waratahs innings with a very defendable 125.

The dynamic in the field was outstanding with all boys eager to win. Thanks to some great tight bowling especially from Matty Alexander (2-9 off 4), Taylor Beatty (2-20 off 4) and Nick Mclachlan (2-20 off 4) the Manly boys were set for a win. This all changed however by the efforts of one man, when Sandhu bombed 5 of the cleanest sixes to steer his side to victory.

Despite the narrow defeat, i think its fair to say that we were the better side and showed some great character and fight in the field. 
Special mention also to Matty Mee who took 4 superb catches in the outfield.