Monday News – Rd 2 v NDs – Day 1

The second round of the 2012/13 season got underway to some grey sky’s, and those grey skies continued for the rest of the day. Most grades waited around for a few hours before retiring to the pub, the 2nd grade boys all in their whites and spikes which would have been and interesting site. However, at the end of the day there was no play in grades 1, 2, 3 and 5. The miraculous part was 4th grade getting on on without doubt the worst affected rain ground in Sydney, Asquith. You drop a bead of sweet on that ground and you are off for the day. But not this Saturday…

Hopefully next Saturday can produce some better weather and we can get a result in all grades, for both clubs sake. This is especially so since about half of the matches got on over the weekend.

1st Grade – Manly vs NDs – No play due to rain

2nd Grade – Manly vs NDs – No play due to rain 

3rd Grade – Manly vs NDs – No play due to rain

4th Grade – Manly 97 (L Anderson 32, C Gardiner 26) and 1/2 vs NDs 6-100 dec

Manly 4s rocked up to a gloomy looking Asquith park looking to bounce back from our round 1 loss. NDs won the toss and elected to bowl and after the first few overs we could see their captain made the right decision. Skipper LG was unfortunately out early from a ball that cut a mile and which he could do nothing about. James Boyer soon followed suit after a dubious umpiring decision. After 7 overs we were looking in quite a spot of bother with the deck being very unpredictable as well. Taylor Beattie and Louie Anderson batted well together as we’re looking to form a solid partnership until Taylor was dismissed after looking so good at the crease. His batting wasn’t looking to bad either (pardon the pun). 

Louie looked set for a half century and the same for dingo until Lady Luck struck for the other team as it so often does and Louis was Bowled by a mulley gribble that barely scraped his shoe laces off a short length and dingo was deemed caught behind by another dubious call by the umpire. Wickets kept falling and we finished all out for 96 with Louie (32) and Dingo (26) the top scorers. Special shout out to Brad Wilson and his two flicks off the legs, both going for 4. Somebody sign him up please. 

As there were still overs to be Bowled we went in feeling confident of rock n rolling them on the pitch of mud. Steady wickets fell from good bowling by Josh Sheedy (dickins) and Taylor who were well supported by Wilson but unfortunately we were only able to have them six down with the wicket takers being Sheedy (2-30) Beatty (2-14) and Sam Alexander (2-21) 
NDs declared and we had to unbelievably bat two overs in the dark. Tulley unfortunately chopped on right at the end and we are 1-2 going into next week. Hopefully we can still walk away with 6 points.

Peace out
S Alexander

5th Grade – Manly vs NDs – No play due to rain