The best of the Tahs as they shine in a victorious weekend – Weekend Wrap 07/08 March 2020

The mighty Tahs arrived with 6 points in sight, just 8 wickets needed to secure it. After 2 wickets late in the afternoon the previous Saturday- momentum was swung well in our favour. From ball one, extremely fast bowling was on show and it was brilliant. Mickey and Hads bowled nothing short of exceptional and continually questioned the batsmen, with not a huge amount of luck. It was a great partnership between the two, as Mick had the batsmen in all sorts and really made his end threatening, where at the opposing end, Hads was bowling just as good and started to take wicket after wicket. Similarly, Morne bowled in tandem with SOK where Morne had the batsmen in all sorts, play and missing throughout his spell. Sokky at the other end, was not only challenging the batsmen and taking wickets- but barely went for a run, leading from the front with hitting a dime. As Hads came on again he kept breaking through batsmen, as his wicket tally rose and rose, similarly, SOK taking poles to eventually see UNSW all out for 88- Ryan Hadley, with exceptional and well deserved figures of 7-26.

6 POINTS. FOLLOW ON.

We go again. Morne to open us with some serious fast bowling and getting his first red ball scalp for the waratahs, one to remember at Manly Oval. Once again, Mickey bowled exceptionally throughout the second dig and so did Morne. Although once again, Hads and SOK paired up to snag the poles. SOKKY continued his exceptionally economic bowling, picking up scalp after scalp, where hads bowled with real venom and pace to keep taking poles. SOKKY with 4, Hads with 3 (finishing with 10 for the match). To finish off. Manly Oval. Morne Morkel. Hits the pad. Everyone goes up………finger raises.

10 POINTS. GO MANLY

3- Hadley

2- Okeefe

1- Merchant

Fielding point – Vumbaca

Isaiah Vumbaca

Jake Carden took the headlines on a short but successful day for the Tahs as 2nd Grade recorded their second outright victory in as many rounds.

2nd Grade arrived to a dreary David Philips Oval with drizzle filling the air and a faint smell of rum. The pitch, however, had remained largely dry which meant an on time start at 10.30.

By 11.30 it was all over. Ping (The Professor) taught the UNSW students a valuable lesson in seam bowling. The first wicket came in the first over of the day as Max Webber took a stunning catch in the gully to dismiss the one remaining UNSW batter. Jammo nicked off the number 4 a couple of overs later before selflessly removing himself from the attack to allow the inform international Hicks into the fray. Ping continued to pick up wickets at the other end with a probing line and length. With the ball barely carrying to Swebs he made no mistake and ended with 4 catches in the innings, despite making them look incredibly difficult. Special mention goes to Joel Davies for a sharp catch in the gully despite spending the morning looking at himself in the reflection of his new sunglasses. His obvious talent is already attracting interest from personnel within Cricket Australia.

The UNSW middle order melted away like a chocolate teapot. Some wild swings and decent deliveries accounted for the rest of the order with the only competition being whether Ping would take a 5for or Hicks would finish with 10 for the match. Ping won the battle and finished with figures of 6-18 with Hicksy taking 3-22 (taking him to an outstanding 8 for the match).

The only downside to the day being we had to bat again. The target was 3. Fittingly, after Swebs punched one through the covers for 2 it was left to the opening bowler to over step for the Tahs to seal 10 points. All that was left was to hand Fabian the kit after a show of defiance towards the Authorities the previous Sunday and head to the TAB for an afternoon of punting.

Big game next week against Parramatta with a place in the finals up for grabs.

3 – Andrew Hicks

2 – Jake Carden

1 – Sam  Gainsford

Fielding – Neal Prowse

 

Neal Prowse

The graduates arrived to a moist Graham’s Reserve still recovering from the festivities of the previous weekend. With wind in their sail and strength in their hearts from a bonding experience like no other, they went about taking the 10 UNSW wickets that would deliver 6 crucial points.

The day didn’t quite go to plan from the start, with some very soft landing pads making it hard for the fast bowlers to go about their work with as much accuracy and pace as usual. The UNSW batsman put away the bad balls with aplomb, and moved the score along to 0/70 before the new skipper started throwing down his mix of full tosses and half trackers to steal 2 crucial wickets before the tea break.

With the game evenly poised following the juncture at 2/110, Jake Osborne went about turning the game with his arousing right-arm around-the-wicket finger spin. Getting an array of strong purchase from the tacky Graham’s wicket, Jake pinched 4 wickets throughout the intervening session to swing the game back the Waratahs way.

Following the final drinks break, Vigney pinched 2 more crucial wickets to set the Waratahs up for the win with 15 overs to go. Unfortunately, UNSW battened down the hatches at this point and (credit to them) would not be dislodged despite the valiant efforts of young paceman Josh Seward and the rest of the attack. 

The game concluded in a disappointing draw, with UNSW 40 short of our total. Overall not the best day for the Waratahs, another 6 points that we probably deserved but just couldn’t squeeze out. It takes the end of our season right down to the wire, with a do-or-die clash against fellow top 6 side Parramatta at the home of cricket next week.

Until next time,

Russel Arnold

3 – Jacob O’Sullivan

2 – Jordan Daly

1 – Jake Osborne

Chicken Shack Fielder of the Round – Nick McLachlan (in absentia)

Sam Hole

4th grade entered week two of the UNSW clash needing 3 runs to win first innings after Alec Duly left a ball in the last over last week. He made up for his misjudgement week 2 by inviting his Mrs to watch him bat only to have the runs scored in the first over and Billy declaring before she turned up.

So again we took to bowling, Hobson and Laughton opening up and the boys bowled some genuinely unplayable deliveries without much luck until their opener ran himself out in what could only be described as one of the more special 4th grade run outs, turning and going for two while Dom had the ball in his hands. Unfortunately for us Hobbo felt crook and couldn’t bowl plus Toby was bowled out in what felt like the 6th over. The 2nd wicket fell not too much later at slip off a great ball from Lachie T.

Unfortunately we went to sleep for a few overs and a few half chances later the uni boys had build a partnership but basically showed no intent to try and claw back a win until after tea. Aiden Bennett bowled a really good spell of fast and at times aggressive bowling. He picked up the slack from Hobbo’s sickness and Toby being bowled out, plus the captain not wanting to bowl after a serious dance floor injury from the weekend before.

Considering we thought he was going to the glue factory after last week it was really pleasing to see Kerr also try hard every time he was thrown the ball. A.B ended up with 3 wickets LT 1 and a run out or two

Manly then went into bat needing 171 off 25 overs, looking to be positive and push for 10 points. The boys shrugged off some horrible chat from the allegedly educated Uni players, but we lost a couple of early wickets.

Dom backing up from his 1st innings effort looked good until being trapped in front for 38. Billy Lindsay then took to the bowlers and launched a few out of the complex to keep us in the hunt. Jack M came in and managed 20 odd but a few wickets and Billy getting out with 3 overs to go and the order was sent out to block it out and take the 6 points.

All in all a great game for the manly boys considering we batted 47 overs out of 160 and only came up 30 odd short of an outright victory and go into 5th on the ladder.

3 pts Jack Hobson 6 wickets 1st inns

2 pts Dom Wheeler 6 catches, 43 and 38

1 pt Andrew Lindsay 2/0, 22 and 66

Andrew Lindsay

Round 14 had Manly playing against UNSW in a must win game to reach the finals. Manly won the toss and elected to have a bat on a good batting deck. Manly lost 2 early wickets which put us on the back foot early. but then a handy partnership from Oscar Lucius (41) and Darryl Buchanan(39) had manly 4-99 at tea. Andrew Rochford hit a quick fire 62 to swing the momentum back to manly. Josh cooper( 63 )continued this momentum by building partnerships with Oliver Melville (19) and Luke Morley (17). Manly ended up with 281 all out off 79 overs.

With 282 for UNSW to chase on a good batting wicket manly knew that it was going to be a grind in the field. every ball was its own little game. after tight bowling from Darcy Fleming in his opening spell 0-1 off 3 it was Andrew Rochford with the first wicket caught behind. Oliver Melville then bowled his opening spell of 6 overs and the number 3 lbw cheaply. next in to bat was JB Gavin a partnership was arising with the opener.

Roop Dhillon then got the vital breakthrough of JP Gavin for 22. When another partnership was arising before Andrew Boulten and Andrew Rochford smartly crafted a run out. With the opener still batting and bringing up his 100 the team was only on 150. Manly knew if they got him out the game would become a lot easier. Then after his hundred the man machine Andrew Rochford (21 overs 2-72 )bounced him and a diving catch by Oscar Lucius with the gloves ended his luck. Oliver Melville then picked up another well deserved wicket to end up with (2-34 off 15). The star of the day though was Roop Dhillon picking up another 5th grade 5fa deceiving the tail with figures of 5-47 off 13. UNSW ended up all out with 197 leaving manly with a crucial 84 run win which now puts us in 5th with one game to go before finals.

3- Roop Dhillon

2- Josh Cooper

1- Oscar Lucius 

Josh Cooper