Saturday the 4th of March
Metalfold Industries Bloomfield Premier 3 vs United CC and Dannevirke Black.
Returning Old Faces, New Faces and A Couple Of Lovely Spectators
Our second weekend of the T20 competition saw things changed up a bit. First of all some fine weather but also a couple of new players joined us in P3 and we also saw the return of a couple old favourites ready to spice things up a bit. The first game was against United, Trout won the toss and kept the theme going of us batting first.
Playing at Paneiri Park it’s a given that you're going to be met with smaller than usual boundaries, reasonably flat arti’s and pretty quick outfields, 3 things our batsmen love to take advantage of. Jason and Bishtopher did the usual and knocked the ball round for a bit before boundaries started to come. Chris was eventually out caught and bowled by Ricky Costa. Trout put his big boy batting pants on and strolled out at number 3 but liked the idea of getting back and ripping into Chris about his terrible strike rate, big swing for cow and was out bowled for a first ball duck, (refer to the tiktoks). That did bring our first returnee Anthony Cliff out to middle to give Jase a bit of support. Playing some super classy shots, he eventually departed for a superb 28. From there it was Jason that stole the show, not one to be happy with running between the wickets, he blasted his way to a long-awaited century off a minuscule 53 balls. Almost carrying his bat, he was dismissed on 108 with 2 balls left in the innings. Bloomfield finishing on 187 for 5.
Starting off with the ball, things got off to a sloppy start with United not missing an opportunity when a bad ball was bowled. Bryndoggs was back opening the bowling for bloomers this weekend and as usual made decent use of the short ball. Kurtis took up some spin at the other end but almost anything too short or slightly offline was hit to the boundary. Aaron Liew made an impact with a quick 27 before Kurt took his wicket. Nobody else really got going from United. Perhaps all the support coming from the two cricket loving gentlemen who were taking a day out of their busy schedules to come down an give constructive advice was too distracting? Not too sure. They are incredibly good looking and certainly catch the eye of myself, Trout, P3 captain and author of this incredible piece of literature.
It wasn’t until the number 7 and 8 partnership of Joel Young and Rick Satherly formed and were able to put on a quick 70 odd runs but once they departed, so did the runs. United eventually seeing out the innings falling 12 runs short of the target. Wickets were shared around with 4 for Chris, 3 for Kurt and 2 for Corey
The second game for p3 saw us go up against our mates from Dannevirke. This game saw Trout lose the toss, but Dannevirke's captain Shaun also wanted us to stick with what we know best and open with batting.
Our innings started well with Bishtopher and Jason both getting off to good starts. Bish was the first to fall on 26 and shortly followed by Jason for 27, after hitting possibly the biggest 6 Paneiri Park has ever seen. Trout and Kane formed a bit of a partnership for a while with Kane contributing 20 runs to score. Things kept ticking along as good as they could with some of the Dannevirke bowlers proving difficult to get away. Everyone that batted managed to get a few runs, but the star of this batting innings was Trout who managed to bludgeon himself to a spectacular 56 not out. No wonder all our batsmen try to follow in his footsteps. After that performance we managed to finish on 6/157.
Defending it brought out all sorts of entertainment. Our bowlers bowled well but gave away a handful of bad balls that were pounced on and hit to the boundary. Unfortunately, we had a few dropped catches early that helped the batsmen tick along. Graeme Harris was finally caught in the deep after being given a couple of lives but that only got Doug out in the middle to show off some lovely technique and show us how to bat. He played a nice innings and got caught out on 48. William Allomes kept on scoring and didn’t give up the fight to win. After some tight bowling, superb fielding, and a couple of glorious run outs, Dannevirke fell just short of the total, finishing up on 5/154. Another close game that goes to show this competition could be anyone’s. Next up, our mates at Palmy...
MVP- Ben & Gaz 3, 2 & 1 for their incredible support.
Accelerate Automotive Bloomfield Premier 4 vs PNBHS 4th XI and United CC.
Rounds 3 & 4 of the 20/20 competition at Timona Park, a pleasant place to play, and two must win games to get us into the top of the table.
Round 3 vs. PNBHS 4ths. Captain Dawson did his normal thing and lost the toss, and 4ths did their normal thing and opted to bat. Some impressive work by their opener Freddie Dunn got them off to a good start before George took the first wicket. At the other end Bevan grabbed the 2nd wicket part of a truly impressive spell of 1/15 off 4. After a decent start, 4ths had reached 85/3 with 8 or 9 overs to spare at a reasonable clip. But then Randy (1/16), Craig (2/25) and Lucas (2/30) put in a great team bowling effort in the final overs to restrict the Boys High to 121/8 with George taking the 8th and final wicket in the last over.
That last wicket must have really fired George up because he came out all guns blazing. While our opposition entertained us with some impressive chat and a host of appallingly bad Dad jokes George started slapping the ball to all parts. After 4 overs Murrie at the non-striker’s end was relaxing having only faced 6 balls, while George smoked 50+ off the other 18 and just kept on going. A 102-run partnership was posted with George knocking up 80 or so of them before Murrie was out for 14. Only needing 20 to win Dan didn’t have much to do as George continued pummelling the ball to all parts. Win secured in the 15th over. George not out for 94 off 53 balls. The only thing getting in the way of his first club hundred the lack of runs to chase.
MVP – (Boys High Chat 4) George 3, Bevan 2, Lucas 1
Round 4 vs. United a tougher proposition and while we started in great fashion with George (it was his day) taking a wicket with the 2nd ball of the innings things fell away as we fell a bit flat. The chat was still there but we were struggling with our line and length and United’s no.3 & no.4 took full advantage. Dropped catches didn’t help and while Randy once again stepped up with the ball restricting them to just 11 runs off his 4 overs, we were unable to take more wickets. United finishing 150/2 off 20 over. Not as big as they were threatening to post but a solid target.
Batting wise things didn’t go as planned. While George started hitting boundaries from ball 1 again everyone else struggled. Murrie, Steven, Dan and Randy added just 7 runs from 22 balls between them. While George kept hitting from one end on his way to this 2nd 50 of the day 68 (off 38) the only other batsmen to reach double figures was Damian (18 off 26).
Some comical relief near the end of the innings though with Dawson & Cannonball having a domestic out in the middle which resulted in Craig being run out at least a meter short of his ground, Cannon Ball then tried to do the same to Bevan. Player of the innings for United was Lachlan Whitley he took a great catch to remove George, ran out Craig and then grabbed two wickets in two balls (2/10 off 3) to really put the boot in. The 2nd wicket coming after he was told he needed one to get another over. Dave Ball was the intended hat-trick victim, but it wasn’t to be, and neither was a win for us, Bloomfield all out for 118 off 18.5 overs well short.
MVP – George 3, Randy 2, Dave B 1
Comments