Monday News – Rd 4 v Parramatta – Day 2 + PGs vs Parramatta – One Dayer

So close to the perfect weekend but never the less a heartening performance by all grades that has seen us hold our CC spot. 1^st grade hammered Parramatta, 2nds had them 9 down but couldn’t finish them off, 3rds had an unlucky draw and 4s and 5s had convincing wins. This improved performance is no doubt due to the swelling numbers we are seeing at training and the fact we are on the grass finally.

4 Pines Brewery Player of the Week – Ron Davis

This man will remain an enigma. I will not be posting a photo as he is 4^thgrades property for the rest of the year. Living out west we may not see him at training too often but his presence was certainly felt on the weekend. The former Fairfield quick enjoyed his first run on an Australian turf pitch for 15 years by bumping out Parra in 4^th grade to finish with the great figures of 6/13 from 15. He bowled at a handy pace and accurately and his bumper was usually on target. He set the standard in the field and hopefully the hammy strain he got for his troubles will not be too serious. It was great to have an intimidatory figure in the team – he doesn’t like when runs are scored from his bowling, he is old, he is bald and he drinks at bikie early openers. Don’t mess with him!

1st Grade – Manly 4 dec 348 (T Cruickshank 179, N Watkins 63, C Merchant 70no) beat Parramatta 133 (N McLachlan 3/12, A Beadle 3/41, S O’Keefe 2/13, B Martin 2/42) and 5/199 (SOK 3/74, AB 2/77)

First grade on Saturday completed a two-day demolition job against the Parramatta side. This was our first win of the two-day competition and will hopefully kick start our season.

The day started well with Napper and AB both batting selflessly in pursuit of quick runs in the morning. Napper returned to form with an excellent 70* while AB ended up with 31. Our total score was 4-348 of only 67.3 overs. We felt this would be a winning score if we could build pressure with the ball and get away to a good start.

Ben Martin and Nicko’s both bowled beautifully in their first spell and after taking two wickets in our first two over’s Parramatta never really recovered. All the bowlers shared in the spoils as Parra were eventually rolled for 133 off 43 overs. Nicko’s took the figures with an awesome 3-12 off 9 overs.

So with 64 overs left in the day and a lead of over 200 we were quietly confident of rolling the Parra boys again to scoring ourselves 10 points. Unfortunately, despite bowling well on a wearing wicket, we just couldn’t get a roll on. We took wickets quite regularly but just couldn’t quite get a few in a short period of time to really put Parra under the pump as they finished with 5-199 off 58. SOK showed his class bowling from one end unchanged for 29 overs for the tidy return of 3-74. AB also bowled well taking 2 for 82 with several doosra’s making life difficult for the batsmen.

Special mention must also be made of Mickey Edwards on debut. Unfortunately he didn’t claim his maiden first grade wicket, however his spells in both innings were excellent. In particular, his spell in the second innings where he hit the Parra opening batman in the arm and continued to rough him up afterwards was great to watch. It is fair to say we probably haven’t had a bowler in first grade who can consistently intimidate the batsman physically since Shane Cleary, however Mickey definitely fits that bill. He would have learn a lot from having the NSW skipper talking him through his overs from mid off and we’re all looking forward to watching Mickey take plenty of wickets in first grade for the rest of the season.

All in all it was a good day for the Manly boys, with the match being set up by Shank’s brilliant knock the week before. The song was sung with gusto (led by Napper) as the team enjoyed a beer and coconut water together after the game.

2nd Grade – Manly 5dec 307  (B Smith 143, L Edgell 76, M Pugh 37) lost to Parramatta 9/309 ( M Alexander 4/98, L Edgell 2/56, D Marshall 2/59)

Arriving day 2 and the wicket was a mirror image of the first week. Hard and flat. We bowled well in patches with Matt Alexander the pick with 4/98, his hard work in the nets paying off. We lost some focus in the second session where some mistakes were made and it cost us. We fought back after tea and with some quick wickets we were in the box seat but  the last wicket put on 60 which was the nail in the coffin for us. We won 5 of the 6 sessions but that’s clearly not enough. So often the case but there was enough signs of form to give us confidence going forward.

Luke

3rd Grade – Manly 7/271 ( M Burgess 90, J Daly 54, T Beatty 42) drew Parramatta 272 (C Little 3/48, S Gainsford 3/59)

The tahs turned up to atmosphere park once again after a tough day in the field last week with parra 9-270. The bottom 6 once again prevailed in the pre game touch footy, some saying it was all down to the presence of one Scott Patterson. Among us due to Jacob breaking his finger during last weeks game. Parra then made a strange decision to bat on, adding another run onto the score before falling to mezza, meaning we had 76 overs to make 270 odd. 

Jarrod and max started us off very well, giving away very few chances getting the score to 50 without a fall of wicket. Shortly after however Jarrod fell for 20 odd to a dodgy situation regarding the stupid rules on over limits for underage bowlers. The debutant Sam hole then came in and made a good start but unfortunately fell to a good catch from the bowler for 7. Max and Jordan pushed on and their crucial partnership of patient shot selection mixed with powerful strokeplay and aggressive running between the wickets took us up to nearly 200. Jordan then fell just after bringing up his 50 with Max’s outstanding innings also falling just short of a hundred with 90. Taylor and Sam webber then played very well needing to push a bit harder due to the rising run rate, needing 50 off 6 overs at one stage.

Taylor finished with 42 and sammy 25, jeany also contributed with 13 vital runs as it all came down to the last over needing 8 runs 6 down. We scored 2 runs off the first 3 balls before jeany held out on the fourth ball of the over. Mezza was on strike for the last 2 balls of the game needing 6 runs for a win. He hit the first to the mid off boundary for a well run 2 so we needed a boundary to win off the last. He hit it well as it was looking like it was going to clear the same fielder at mid off but unfortunately didn’t and all we could get was a 2, so the tahs ended up 2 runs short of parramattas score which resulted in a draw. The boys fought well and deserved to win with everyone contributing to the performance, special mentions to max, jordy, Taylor and swebbs for batting performances, jeany and Gainsy for some great bowling last week and mezz for the cabba. Also thanks to wrighty and also Scotty P for helping us out with fielding, great men

Faz

4th Grade – Manly 179 (B Wilson 42no, B Falconer 29, W Evans 29) beat Parramatta 135 ( R Davis 6/13, W Evans 2/13)

Manly 4ths had a convincing win against Parramatta at Merrylands Oval. The deck was flatter with less grass than last week so we were going to have  a tussle on our hands. Starting up with Ash and Sheedy we had attacking fields which allowed the batsman to get away with a few early runs. A change in bowling with Ron coming on immediately had an effect with an LBW to make it 3-55 quickly followed by a short delivery pulled to a diving Wilson at mid wicket who completed a great catch. Sheedy was bowling well and if it wasn’t for a case of the dropsys in the slips and a curious decision would have picked up a wicket or two. Ron continued with the carnage, bouncing out their key batsman with a glove thru to Butch and another top edge where Butch took an excellent running catch. Evans (2/13) then got one through someone else who looked alright for Falconer to take a good catch at 1^st slip. Ron started to tire with a leg cramp/hammy (whatever it is definitely not fit for 3rds next week) and he finished with the remarkable figures of 6/13 from 15 overs. At drinks Parra were in trouble at 8/80 and I had a quiet word to their capt who was batting at the time (luckily too I might add as Sam A had him caught behind on 0 but the ump saw/heard differently). Asking him if he would be interested in a run chase later in the day he said he would be….this was his cue to declare and to have 10 wickets chasing , say, 180 in 40 overs….but no he went with the odds of his tail enders getting another 100. Silly! Ruined what would have been a good match. As it turned out it all went predictably….they wagged a bit  on a belter to scratch their way to 135 before we finished them off with Wilson getting a well deserved wicket and Ash bowling a couple of overs of excellent leg spinners.

A great effort from the team who stayed switched on…it has similarities to Rd3 last year where we had a poor start to the year but then got on the board with a great win against Sutherland which started our run to the GF. I am not making any wild predictions but if we stay focused and, essentially, try hard, we’ll go alright. Looking forward to seeing all 4^th graders training hard this week.

 Dollars….3 to Davis, 2 to Wilson and 1 to Evans

Wazza

5th Grade – Manly 9/303 (R.Trewartha 121, J.Trickey 50, J.Garay 43) beat Parramatta 143 ( W Jonkers 3/16, J Knight 3/19, J McClintock 2/43) and 5/179 ( Jonkers 2/25, M Cole 2/40)

 

Day two for the ‘fearsome fives’ proved to be an early point quencher for the boys in blue. A very tidy beginning saw Will Jonkers take an early wicket. The Parramatta batting line-up continued to fall through from that point on, with a cohesive effort around the field and with the ball. Special notice to the number 3 batsmen who decided to head home early after a heat-packed over from James Trickey himself! Even a cameo appearance from the tail wasn’t enough for Parramatta to hold out, being cleaned up for 143 after 41 overs. Some good intentions and consistent basics saw McClintock and Knight with rewards. 

With 302 up on the board and over 2 hours left in the day, ‘Captain Clown-town’ Ross had no choice but to send the men from the West back in for the bonus points, needing 9 wickets for outright points. After a slow start to the second innings, Jonkers again brought the goods, picking up 2 wickets off 2 balls, and finishing the day with 5 wickets over the 2 innings! Matt Cole picked up a quick set, and so too Harris Rogers, but in the end wasn’t enough to bring home second innings points. 

 Special mention to Captain Ross for his 121 with the bat and a wicket to his name, Will Jonkers 5 wickets for the day, and James Trickey – the new ‘X factor’ being unbeaten in his games played for the 2012/2013 season, and classy appearances with the bat and ball! The triumph bringing the fixtures too two-from-four overall, looking forward to bringing the form to Gordon.

J Garay

PG’s – Manly 7/233 (A. Lowe 69, J. Badyari 34, J. Daly 27*, T. Kaye 27) defetead by Parramatta 6/234 (L. Grant 2/45, T Beatty 2/45)

Manly’s U/21’s turned up to the ever pleasant Old Kings Park in which was a consecutive outing to eels territory for many of the boys. With a jubilant warm up of ultimate frisbee the boys were feeling buoyant and ready to play. With Pughy winning the toss and electing to bat it was the skipper himself along with Sammy Webber who kicked off the manly boys innings. The boys got off to a boisterous start with the runs flowing nicely. Unfortunately it was Pughy to depart for a quick fire 20 odd by picking out the short fine leg after looking so good (his batting wasn’t looking too bad either). Lowey joined Sammy and the boys kept the ROtations up. Sammy was next to the pavilion, matching Pughy for another great 20 odd, after being caught on the boundary for the second time in one weekend! Sammy! 

Moving on, Lowey and jav came together and really grinded it out when the going got tough, the boys had a great partnership going until jav fell for a really well played 20 odd. Taylor came in and played some lovely, shots and supported Lowey well who was smoking them from the other end. Things were looking good until Tay departed after drinks for another well made 20 odd. 

After providing him with some quality h2o, Lowey kept the run rate going and batted with real class until he was unfortunately dismissed for a spectacular 69 which kept the manly boys in good position (pardon the pun). 

Tommy came out and had the reverse sweep down packed until he unfortunately chopped on. In the end MatTOES came out and smoked another 20 odd off few balls with Jordan Daly playing a very composed and mature innings in which he kept turning over the strike and finished up with a splendid 27*. Hats off to LG with a beautiful 0*. The manly boys finished off with 233 and were looking to the bowlers to finish the job. 

Proceedings were slow until the great Taylor Beattie came on and took 2 wickets in one over to have the parra boys in a spot of bother. Wickets fell with Lukey Grant taking 2 wickets but unfortunately the runs kept coming and the game was in the balance. The boys just couldn’t find that killer blow and the parra boys ended up winning with 2 overs to spare. Mickey and Dylan also finished with one wicket a piece and bowled very well without much luck, as did most of the bowlers. 

Special shout out to big Sammy Webber steaming in with his seam ups having the batsmen in all sorts. Is there anything this kid can’t do? 

The boys are now left with the opportunity for a big turn around with one of the most pleasant venues in Sydney grade cricket, Hawkesbury. 

Peace out, 

S.alexander (Waterboy)