Second Grade

First game of the season saw the boys pretty keen as the covers were removed in record time. The question on everyone’s lips was ‘Is Poor-Mans-Old-Hard-Head (PMOHH) playing’? Unfortunately he wasn’t.

No idea who won the toss, but we found ourselves having a bat on a deck that Webby kept telling us was ‘pretty ordinary’ but seemed to play fairly well. A solid start by Mike (40 odd) and Merrick Watts (30 odd) saw the openers put on about 80 or so before Ricki’s cartwheeling middle stump almost killed their wicket-keeper.

Ed and Tommy came and went as Bags and Blacky put together a decent partnership before Bags was dismissed for a well-compiled 54. Blacky and Zac saw out the remaining overs and put on a handy partnership at the death as we reached 5-246, which was probably a par score. Blacky 57* and Zac 20*.

Big Webb charged in and got us a pole in the first over, courtesy of an edge and a sharp catch by Fred at second gripper. Up the other end, Zac was tying things down and eventually cleaned up their ‘pinch-hitter’ who attempted to pull a fullish delivery. He then got some left hander

who looked like a decent player courtesy of a screamer of a catch by Bevo, diving across in front of Ed at First slip. The Ghosts 3-35.

From here on it was fairly routine, as we applied the pressure, the required run rate soared, and wickets fell regularly. Ed took a couple of dollys and Macca pulled off a pretty good run out to dismiss poor man’s PMOHH. Wickets were shared amongst Georgie Webb (2), J-Rodd (2), Red (2), Bags (1), and Fred (1).

All in all a pretty solid win, with the fielding exceptional.

After a solid win in round 1 the boys were looking to improve in our match against Balmain, who are always a competitive team and had knocked us off the last 2 times we had played them.

With the whole grade being washed out on the Saturday, a 1 day match was scheduled for the Monday.

Ed lost the toss but we found ourselves bowling on a deck with a bit of life early on, but overall very good.

Balmain started pretty slowly and we got a couple of early breakthroughs (courtesy of Webb and Tait) to have the Tigers 2-60 off about 20. From here the game took a fairly steady pace as Balmain were content to push the singles, and we were content to protect the boundaries. They finished 7-206, which we felt was very getable. Wickets were shared, with no-one grabbing more than 2.

A couple of early run outs saw us in trouble at 2-10, but Mike and Ed steadied the ship putting on about 50 until Eduardo

was out for about 28. From here, we lost wickets at one end, while Mike was starting to dominate the Tigers attack. Unfortunatley though, no-one else could really stick around with him as Blacky, Zac, big Fred and Peebs were all dismissed cheaply leaving us at 7-190 and giving Balmain a sniff.

When L’il Ricky was dismissed for a cracking 112, we were about 8 short of our target. Bevo and Spud Webb saw us home, with ‘the nicest bloke in the world’ smoking a cover drive to give the Rangers the 6 points (Webby, you are a good bloke, but I’m referring to Bevo). Bags then proceeded to lead a pretty ordinary ND ranger. This apparently brought a tear to Jerry Hook’s eye, to see such a fine tradition reduced to such a shambles!

Always good to get the 6 points, but our batting will need to improve for the forthcoming games.