The Falcons - Round 1 Captains Match Reports

Round one came around quickly again this season and for the second year running we had the reigning premier in Knoxfield first up at home. With a few of new additions to the side in Joe Morsello from Rowville, Shan Small back from his season off due to work commitments and also Adam Metherell back from a couple of seasons with Port Melbourne, we were keen to take on the best side in the comp and see where we were at as a side.

On a perfect afternoon for cricket, we lost the toss and Knoxfield chose to bat first.

Our season got off to a perfect start with the ever reliable Adam ‘Wilba’ Wild striking early dismissing one of Knoxfield’s in form batsman from last season with the score on 3. The bowlers did a decent job all afternoon, last season we had too many flat spots with the ball and it was a large focus for us going into this game. Unfortunately, we couldn’t back up our bowlers in the field, grassing four catches including that of Jack Taylor on 10 and 13, he made us pay and went on to make 55. We toiled away really well and ended up bowling Knoxfield out for 208, which we thought was around a par score on our ground, with the new fielding restrictions and white ball. The wickets went to, Wilba 8 overs 2/30, Scotty Mac 8 overs 1/36, Adam Metherell 8 overs 3/40 and Matt Young had 4 overs 2/24.

We got off to a great start with the bat with Niraj Desilva and Shannon Small putting on a 65 run partnership and we were going a decent run rate. Unfortunately for us the loss of a wicket slowed the run rate down dramatically, we were chasing the game needing around 8+ an over for the last 12 or so overs. With Knoxfield’s disciplined bowling attack and high standards in the field, the task was just a little bit too big for us, falling 24 runs short ending our innings on 6/184. Shannon and Niraj were the top run scorers with Smally making 47 and Niraj 29. Josh Gregory did everything in his power to get us home finishing on 28*, whilst Matt Young made a quick fire 25.

Back to work after a successful campaign last season and it looks like the draw has been copied and pasted from last season as once again we travelled to Miller Park to take on the Burra in round 1.

Winning the toss and electing to bat has become the norm in the 2^nd XI, so after considering calling tails I called heads and let the boys chuck on their pads for a hit. The word must have spread that our top order bats were uncomfortable against the medium pace short ball as they received a barrage of them which were mostly thumped into the fence or onto the hill. Lachie ‘Kid Rock’ Stuckey took his chance at the top plundering a very proper 49 and looked at ease unlike Morro who tried to hit one into orbit which only saw his castle hastled. Josh ‘Cymbols’ Wylde controlled the middle to late over with our young batting line up all contributing nicely pushing the total to a very respectable 6/198 on the ridiculously slow ground. Mitch also wanted me to mention he hit 28 not out including a massive bomb, but I won’t mention that.

The old fox looked once again in ripping nick to go around for another dominating season so I handed him the new pill. Young Drew Withers didn’t quite look in as good a nick but I also handed him the new ball. The pair were far too good for the Burra’s top order and were all over them like a fat kid on a cupcake. 1 for not many, 2 for not many, 3 for not many and could have been much worse if not for a couple of sodas going down to the unlucky Mulder. Mitch then came in like a stream train and blasted out their middle order in scintillating fashion with his trademark celebrations which almost included a hat trick. I bowled rubbish and team Jongen finished off the tail to bundle them out for 59 and secure a great first up win. Mitchy G took dare I say career best figures of 3/7 while his partner in ….life? Drew Withers also had great figures with 3/12. Gerard took a sneaky 2/2 which the great Ritchie would be proud of.

Great team performance and look ahead to a big clash with long-time rivals The Basin this week.

On a beautiful spring day to start the season we took on the Footballers in our first game up in Division 4. They won the toss and stole my idea by sending us in to have a bat first. We welcomed Rhys down to the 3s for the first time in a few years and he welcomed the Footballers to season 2017/18 with a 6 off the 4^th ball of the day and taking 10 off the first over. I opened up with him and scored as freely as I ever have but couldn’t keep pace with him. Rhys was dismissed for 59 with the score on 87.

Dyllan Milligan came in at first drop and looked very classy in his footwork but a little scratchy with him timing. He ended up with 18 (dismissed with the score on 147) and no doubt with a few more training runs and games under his belt will be up in the 2nds and pushing the guys in the 1s. Hayden Morrison came in at 4 like usual and we employed a simple game plan of trying to hit the good balls for 1s and the bad balls for 4 which he did perfectly. Unfortunately I fell for 76 with the score on 192. Matt Lambrick (17), Sean Reid (15) and Sam Bakker (2*) all came in and assisted Dos who made a very good 57 not out in which he followed the game plan perfectly. Right to the end he was hitting the good balls for singles and punishing the bad balls.

We ended up with 5/262, a score that will certainly make the competition fear us. To score at over a run a ball will win you 99% of the games you play in and as a captain I could not have asked for anything more from our batting line up, especially the guys batting towards the end.

The first 20 overs with the ball was a real grind and wickets were hard to come by. Varun bowled his 8 overs upfront and had figures of 0/30, however bowled much better than that. Matt Lambrick who came on in the 9^th over bowled his 8 overs straight as well with figures of 2/30 and was the pick of the bowlers. He was given a simple game plan and never deviated from that, a real team game from him which is what we need in division 4.

Devo bowled an excelled 2^nd spell towards the end at finished with 3/39 off his 7 overs whilst Reidy was honest with his 4 overs 1/22. Nixon and King bowled really well in the middle overs with figures of 1/15 (5) and 1/16 (6) respectively. The seam bowlers really set the game up for them to try and draw out some shots but they bowled well enough that those shots never really came. Sam Bakker bowled 2 late overs with figures of 1/11.

Overall a pretty good performance. I was impressed with our intensity in the field and our fielding despite a few dropped catches. We need to work on converting those chances and that is something I am sure the club will be working on as a whole this weekend. We have a lot of players to come back over the next few weeks so I have asked that everyone train as often as possible to make it hard for those guys to get back in and to basically keep doing the right things. Next up we have Lysterfield, who last year won division 4. We will attack them with everything we have an I am confident we can come away with the win and the perfect start to the season.

Pottsy

4th XI vs Upwey Tecoma @ Wantirna Reserve

First up we had Upwey Tecoma that finished top of the ladder last year so we knew that it would be an interesting game and we were going to have to show up and play our best cricket to walk away with the win.

We were one player down and another player had to leave early so we had to bat first to make the most of the players we had. We won the toss thankfully and chose to bat first.

The grass wasn’t mowed at Wantirna college as it was school holidays so we knew we wouldn’t get as much value out of our shots as usual. Ben Marget and Deepak Puri saw us through the first 13 odd overs where scoring was slow before Deepak despatched a full toss straight to the fielder and we lost our first wicket with score on 10 odd. We then lost constant wickets until Porno and Tom Wylde combined for a 40-odd run partnership before Porno was very unlucky to be caught by a diving catch. Tom Wylde and Jackson Crawford then added another 30 runs together before he was dismissed and myself and Tommy put on 16 in the last over to have us finish up on 6/108.

In reply myself and Porno opened the bowling. They were lucky with a couple of catches going through the slips and one falling short as well as another catch being missed. Porno managed to get the opener to sky one and we had them 1/12. A few overs later I bowled the other opener out and had them 2/28. Unfortunately, that’s where they decided to take on our bowlers and go at everything. Gregor got a caught and bowled and there 3^rd wicket fell with them on 48 and from there they passed our score with 20 overs to spare. A lot of the bowlers not having done any pre-season training and being a bowler down didn’t help things for us, however we did what we could.

All in all, it was a tough match and not the result we were looking for, however it was the first game of the season and I’m confident that with the return of some players and fielding a full side that we will be competitive this season once again.

Crookie