TODAY and tomorrow our first-grade side take on Easts at Manly Oval in what shapes as an extremely important match.
After winning our first three matches the side hasn’t quite clicked over the past month, with both our batting and bowling letting us down on occasion.
We will be looking to our quicks to bowl one side of the wicket and for our batsmen to begin dominating the Easts attack like we know we can.
Our batting will look towards myself and Adam Crosthwaite to lead, but we also really need a good start and we are hoping that Jack Ritchie and Luke Edgell can do just that with the new ball.
They are developing into a quality opening pair and with a bit more development will be our first-grade openers for years to come.
With the red cherry, we will again be looking to Nathan Buck to lead our attack.
One part of our bowling that I was pleased with last week was the effort of debutant Michael Visser.
He may not be the quickest around, but he was certainly our most consistent and showed a few of the others guys how to bowl good, consistent lines.
Let’s hope we can take Viss’s example and put it into today’s game.
AMAZING DIFFERENCE
THERE is no doubt that the training side of cricket can get monotonous sometimes, so it is important to mix things around.
As such it was great to see the boys doing something a little different at training on Thursday. We had our inaugural Amazing Manly Race around Manly and it proved a hit.
As per the hit TV show, the boys ran all over town, completing various cricket drills with the coaching team while meeting a few locals on the way.
Rumours of a few digits exchanging hands while getting some of the photos along Manly Beach remain unconfirmed.
YOUNG GUNS FIRING
OUR juniors had a great time of it last week, with our under-11s, 12s and 14s all emerging victorious in their quarter-finals.
The star was young wicketkeeper/batsman Aiden Bariol who scored a ton in the under-14s’ victory.
Aided made his fifth-grade debut last week and has been selected in our Green Shield squad for the coming season.
It is the strongest junior competition in Australia, some say the world, and we have plenty of boys with grade experience in the side.
Joe Graham, Jack Carden and Aiden Bariol have all played grade cricket and along with emerging talent such as Jack Pickering and Lachlan Kerr, we are hoping for a strong season.
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