Round 1 Match Reports for Junior Reps

C S Watson Shield – Under 16s Manly Warringah 10/154 (58.1 overs) defeated by Hawkesbury 9/155 (59 overs) by 1 wicket at Richmond Oval
Jake Carden – 3/21 (12 overs)
Abhijeet Virdi – 3/24 (12 overs)
Joe Graham – 2/17 (6 overs)
Matt Brock – 1/26 (7 overs)
Nick Hidas – 64
Matt Brock – 31
Joe Graham – 27

Congratulations to all of you on the great results over the weekend!
We arrived at Richmond Oval with the smell of bushfire smoke in the air to face up against Hawkesbury who we have tended to have close matches with in the past. Despite losing the match by one wicket in an absolute nail biter, each of the 12 boys showed enormous character to fight back from difficult situations throughout the match. Manly batted first and the Hawkesbury bowlers to their credit bowled a good length and got a lot of assistance from the pitch early on with the ball seaming both ways. We found ourselves in a bit of trouble losing opener Liam Mason, #3 Aaron Peters and #4 Jake Carden with only 3 on the board. Joe Graham our captain and opener, then continued to play a very important role in steadying the ship with plenty of overs still to come. Theo Guichon came in at 5 and spent a good amount of time at the crease with Joe however was unlucky to be given out caught at silly mid-on with a ball that all seemed to hit the ground in front of the fielder’s hands but you take the good with the bad – that’s cricket. Matt Brock joined Joe and after batting so well in difficult circumstances, Joe was out caught for 27. Nick Hidas then joined Matt Brock in what was to be a 96 run partnership of immense maturity and character by both these players. With their good speed between wickets, they pounced on anything that they could, ultimately pressuring the Hawkesbury players into making a lot of fielding mistakes which Nick and Matt were very quick to capitalize on. Matt and Nick’s calling, backing up, running between wickets and overall intent to score runs was outstanding and lifted the whole team after a tough start, leaving the Hawkesbury players looking pretty flat in the field. Nick brought up his 50 in 60 balls. Nick was finally out caught for 64 with 6 fours and one six, in what was to be the highest score on the ground for the day. Matt was out soon after having scored 31. Will Denny and Harrison Dunn came in with just a handful of overs to go and batted like middle order batsmen really taking off from where Matt and Nick left off, pressuring the fielders into mistakes and taking runs off good cricket shots. With Harrison run out in the 59th over the innings came to an end at 154.
Thanks to the contribution of these players we at least had a score to defend and felt that we were still in with a chance with our bowling attack who had bowled Sutherland out for a low score the previous week.
Will and Abhijeet Virdi opened the bowling and while bowling well were not able to get the breakthrough needed. Jake Carden came on as first change and got a wicket on his first ball – bowled middle stump. Score 1/17. Hawkesbury’s #3 batsmen and captain Harry Ridgewell who we know as one of the outstanding batsmen in the age group was one person we needed to try and get out. We brought on spin early with Aaron Peters who had served us very well last week against Sutherland and the fact that the pitch had given great assistance to the Hawkesbury spinners. He bowled great areas, along with Jake troubling both batsmen but were unable to make the next breakthrough. Matt Brock also applied great pressure such that they were only 28 runs off 15 overs, however we knew at the end of the day we needed to take wickets. The next breakthrough was not until the score was on 99. At the afternoon tea break we regrouped and returned to the field with a renewed vitality to really apply the thumb screws. Joe Graham as captain led from the front and applied a very attacking field getting fielders around the bat. We finally got Ridgewell for 59, and then the wickets started tumbling. Players including Matt Brock, Aaron Peters, and Kieren Nixon (amongst other) fielding close to the bat were pouncing on everything and not allowing the batsmen to go anywhere with an all pace attack. In particular, Matt B was lightning quick, picking up a couple of close in catches with great reflexes. The attitude and positivity in the field during this collapse was outstanding and the best I have seen the group work as a unit in the field in the time they have been together. With Hawkesbury 8-for, Abhijeet got a bowled wicket and out walked the Hawkesbury #11 like a rabbit in the headlights. Unfortunately it was the last ball of that over and with only one run to get the #11 looked relived to be at the non-striker’s end. Will took the next over and clearly the batsmen didn’t have much faith in his #11 as he went for a big swing off a full & fast delivery, got an inside edge which came very close to bowling him. He took another swing of the 2nd ball, hit a gap and scored the winning run.
In the end we took the last 8 wickets for 55 runs and came so close to an amazing victory with Jake (3 wickets), Abhijeet (3 wickets), Joe (2 wickets) and Matt Brock (1 wicket) being the wicket takers. While it was disappointing to go down, particularly with all of our other 5 teams winning and not getting the Manly clean sweep, the character shown by the players to pull themselves out of a number of difficult positions in the match was enormous and we hope they can bottle that up and draw on that next week against Northern Districts.
Ross

J H Creak Shield – Under 11s Manly Warringah 7/237 (50 overs) defeated Hawkesbury 69 and 2/61 at Collaroy Plateau Park