2nd XI vs The Basin @ Knox Gardens Reserve

A long and tough season of cricket had come to it’s conclusion last week after we won the last game off the last ball of the match to finish 2^nd on the table after spending the majority on top.

We were rewarded for finishing 2^nd with a home Semi Final against the team we just beat The Basin.

A couple of changes with Stuckey and MG down from playing the last game in the 1’s and the unlucky two to miss out were Callum and Nixon who both tasted premiership success last season in the 2’s so it was a hard decision to make.

After a big lead-up and a very excited young group of lads we were more than ready to take on the challenge of a very experience Basin outfit. Not going to plan as I lost my second toss for the season and we were sent into field on a very warm and dry afternoon.

We have struggled to find our best form when bowling first so we had to lift, and we applied ourselves brilliantly against a dangerous opposition batting line up taking early and consistent wickets for the 47 overs we bowled. Patient and discipline bowling was matched by almost flawless fielding and we had probably our best day in the field for the season to date. The old fox Trav Mulder was at his brilliant best as we have become accustomed to when March rolls around as he snared 3. Drew took his usual early wickets and I chimed in with a couple late, but it was the key wickets young Joshy Curn took that was most pleasing for me and for the team. Keeping a good team to 125 was a great team effort and we were extremely confident we would get the job done.

Morro fell cheaply after smashing the opposition to all parts the week before, so The Basin thought they would be able to dismantle our young gun batting line-up, but they were mistaken. Gerard (20yrs) joined Lachie (19yrs) and they calmed them down and settled the ship with a good partnership before Gerard departed which bought in Adam (18yrs) and the boys fought and scratched their way to stumps with us being 2/53 and in a fantastic position needing only 73 runs for victory. Day 2 came around and Lachie was undone by some great fielding which saw the improved Dos Morrison (17yrs) stride to the crease and although looking a tad nervous against some very experienced bowling he and Adam clawed their way to the target after 68 overs of very mature batting, getting the job done without risk.

A really good performance all round by the boys which sees us reach our goal of giving ourselves an opportunity to compete for this season’s premiership. With the end of season top team losing to 4^th it sees us playing a home final against Eildon Park which we will back ourselves to win if we can replicate the performance of this game.

(Sorry for not being as sharp this week!).

Daine

3rd XI vs Rowville @ Liberty Reserve

Finally the Semi Final had come around as we took on Rowville at Liberty Reserve, where we fell agonisingly short in the Grand Final last year against Lysterfield. I won the toss and decided that we would have a bat first. The decision paid immediate dividends as we took 7 off the first over and Rhys went about his innings before he was dismissed LBW with the score on 42. CJ and I then put on 25 before out of nowhere I was bowled which left us at 2/67. Reidy was next in and he and CJ batted well putting on 50 before CJ was dismissed for an even 50 caught down the leg side. Josh Wylde came in and immediately looked comfortable putting on 42 with Reidy, with the latter being dismissed for a well-made 25. Spencer and Mitch came and went for 3 and 2 respectively but moved the score another 31 runs with Josh to leave us at 6/190.

Bailey came in and provided good support to Josh in a partnership of 28, contributing 9, whilst Nixon and Josh put on 16 before Josh had his castle disturbed for what was a very well made and mature innings of 67. Nixon hit his way to 14 which helped us get to a score of 8/247. Batting your overs is so important in a finals match and I was very happy with the way things had gone. With that being said, the job was only half done.

Bowling was a real struggle early in terms of getting wickets, but Mitch and Devo were excellent opening up in terms of preventing the runs. They managed to get themselves to 1/80 before we struck 3 times before the tea break to have them in a lot of trouble at 4/95 through 47overs. King and Bailey were excellent before the break in flying through the overs with Rowville trying to just get to the break. This meant that Rowville had to go on the attack straight after tea and this paid dividends for young Bailey who ended up with figures of 16 overs 4/30.

Mitch was excellent with 21 overs 3/44, Devo very tidy with 11 overs 0/16, Nixon got taken to a bit early on and finished with figures of 13 overs 0/37. King turned them sideways and made it difficult for the batsmen and probably only bowled one or two bad balls and he finished with 12 overs 1/23. I bowled at the end with 2 overs 0/1 and Spencer cashed in with 1.2 overs 2/2. We bowled 23 maidens from 75 completed overs which shows our discipline. We need to take this into next week where we take on Lysterfield. Lysterfield finished undefeated on top and are a very good side but are beatable. They play their home ground well but we always knew we would have to go there and get the job done to take away the premiership. As they say, you can’t take the title without beating the bulls in Chicago!

Pottsy

4th XI vs The Basin @ Batterham Park