November 19th
Metalfold Industries Bloomfield Pelicans vs Feilding Cricket Club Hedley Electrical Premier 3
Hangovers and Eric Foreman Playing Up.
For a handful of the lads, Saturday was dilapidated by a night full of shenanigans in Wellington due to a certain cricket game being called off. Not helped by the fact they were banking on Saturday's game being washed out going by the weather forecast. 12pm rolled around and play was looking more and more like going ahead so a toss happened, and Fielding sent us in for a bat, as we wanted.
Having had no joy with the online scoring system, the old pen and scorebook were dug out and batting proceeded. Persisting for some reason with Bloomfield’s star test batsmen, Eric Foreman, Trout sent him out to bat with Jase to get things going. Jase did his usual and muscled every ball he could to the boundary while old mate Foreman fluffed around getting the odd run here and there. Jason was eventually out for a quick 49 from 21 balls, unfortunately missing out on the much deserved 50, don’t worry there's a fine for that. At some stage during Jasons innings, Eric stepped things up a notch and started showing a smidge more intent and got his strike rate through the roof to 60 odd. James Pilcher joined Chris in the middle and took to the bowling like it was a dog in heat, some splendid shots saw him rush to 73 from just 53 balls where, surrounded by thunder and lightning, he then introduced Kurtis to the bowlers. Kurtis jumped aboard the bipolar express, threw his bat around in a rage and started scoring quickly.
Eric's best shot.
This is where things started getting interesting, not only was Eric in double digits, but he was also in the 90’s!! Ticking ever so slowly closer and closer to that magical 3-digit score, he hung around on 99 for what seemed like an eternity before finally punching one through covers bringing up his ton! He propelled the bat around a few more times like a kid with a fly zapper, before leaving the field with 107 runs off 80 balls, leaving way too many dot balls behind. Kurtis carried on while being supported by a few more batsmen to eventually see the innings out for a well-made 78*. Bloomfield now needing to defend 350.
Our bowlers started as per norm. Ben and Trout started things off reasonably well, unfortunately 1 or 2 bad balls in each over saw Fielding's openers take advantage and get them to the boundary including Trout getting hit into another suburb. From there the bowling was shared and so were the wickets. All bowlers struggled to take Gareth Youngs' wicket as he hit everyone round the park. Gareth being the only batsmen to get going before getting bowled by something Kurtis bowled for a classy 57. Two wickets to Trout, Kurtis and Chris while Jase, Sukhyeet and James round out the rest. Good to see a handful of young guys getting out and giving it a go for Feilding but unfortunately, they couldn’t get through and were all out for 165
Comfortable win for the 3rds, let's see what Man-Fox have in store next week. Weather permitting....again.
MVP- Eric 3, Pilch 2, Kurtis 1.
Accelerate Automotive Bloomfield Premier 4 vs PNBHS 3rd XI
Back at Paneiri Park, back against Boys High and back wondering why we play a summer sport in city that loves to send Thunderstorms over every weekend. But we got a full game in, and what a grand old game it was.
Captain Dawson lost the toss and Boys High rightly opted to bat first so their chatty openers could have good slog before the expected rain came. One late change saw Murrie take the gloves for Dan. Randy and George got us underway, opening from each end before they took the first wicket bowled Randy caught George – the first of his 3 catches on the day. That brought in Max Hart who took a liking to cow corner which pushed the run rate along. Cometh the hour cometh the Craig and after talking himself up Georges hands reached out and Max was on his way. Murrie snagged a catch down leg, then Dawson got another, and we were looking good at 4/79. Things got away from us a little bit after that as the runs kept flowing. 37 wides didn’t help but the ball was swinging a lot. Dawson got tired and forgot to set the field, George was unlucky not to grab a couple, but Rhys dropped two in a row. The Craigs grabbed a few wickets, but we dropped a few more but got to see Randy smash down the stumps. Play of the innings went to Bevan who one upped Glen Phillips from the T20 WC to send Vindris back to the shed. Runs kept coming though and Boys High ended on 246/9.
Our turn after a delayed start for rain and it was the Dave and George show for first 20 overs after Greg let George bat early by getting out for 1(Terrible). Dave & George took it in turns to hit bowlers from each end to and over various parts of the ground. The Boys High fielding wasn’t helped when one of them dived through the dog shit someone helpfully left on the ground. Dave got to 50. Then it was Georges turn to score his first 50 for the Club and bring up the 100-run partnership. We then stopped for a bit when one of the kids tried to catch a 6 from George, ran into a tree and bent his finger 90 degrees the wrong way. He seemed chirpy about it though. D&G then got 150 for the 2nd wicket, but thats when things started to go wrong. George went first out for great knock of 63 off 60. Dave went the next over for 72 off 56. The runs dried up and wickets fell regularly. Only 1 other batsman got to double figures and after Dave went, we lost 7/60. The last hurrah though was getting to see Bevan play some classy shots before we packed up. Oh, and we saw a rainbow and some lightning so bonus.
MVP – George 3, Dave 2, Bevan 1
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