Seniors Third Round Day 1 Reports
First bat out their overs and set Knox City a fair target
The firsts had their first start at our temporary home, Windermere Reserve. The Gators elected to bat and got off to a reasonable start with the top order, steadily building on the innings, helped along by Buck's with 46.
Kiwi steadied the middle order afte a couple of wickets and was the highlight of the innings, making a well compiled 65. Unfortunately, he was involed in our Captain, Marsh, being run out,his first out for the seasons. In a classic case of yes, no, sorry, Marsh managed to turn 2 into none!
The lower order wagged, with a nice cameo from Cam, who showed us some trick shots and innings guided to it's conclusion at the 80 over mark, by Josh and Steve Dellar.
It was good to see us bat out our overs, something we've struggled to do in recent seasons and with our bowling attack, we should be able to defend our total of 219, but, we can't take it for granted and must bowl and field well next week.
Seconds bowl themselves into a strong position
The much anticipated first two-dayer, first away game, and match against the top side of Knox Boronia Churches started well with Eraj once again winning the toss (3 times in a row!) and electing to bowl.
Nearly having a new side every week so far this season, the 2nd XI was jam packed full of bowlers, with 8 in total! Eraj and Rusty opened the bowling, and bowled great line and length bowling which restricted any run flow from the Burra’s. Rusty claimed the first wicket in the 8th over, sending the middle stump cart wheeling as well as the opening batsmen back to the pavilion. With the gators keeping the pressure and chatter up in the field, the bowlers were on point as Goughy and Cass started their bowling partnership. Cass was spinning circles around the burra’s batsmen and wickets started to take a tumble, and was receiving great support by Luke Heads and Nick Burridge bowling short but tight spells.
The gators were up and about and had a set total in mind that they wanted to restrict Knox Boronia Churches to, but Pete Cass wanted to restrict them even further by continuing to take crucial wickets at a consistent rate! Rusty came back on, and finished with figures of 2/27 off 15, but it was the man of the moment Pete Cass, now known as Miley Cryus a.k.a ‘The Wrecking Ball’ who tore the burras apart. Tongue sticking out and all, Pete finished with career best figures of 8/41 off 27.1 overs, and helped bowl out the Burra’s for 137.
The gators are now set with the challenge next week to chase down the target and take top spot on the Div 4 ladder.
Threes set for another thriller
The 3rds made the trek up the hill to Menzies Creek to take on Belgrave, in what would be the first day of this new concept of split innings.
After winning the toss and sending them in to bat we took wickets at regular intervals to have them 5/95 after their 35 overs. All bowlers did their bit with Cam Davey and Ryan Fabrici taking 2 wickets each while Steve Terrington and Dane Heffernan going for 1 run an over. Lachy Smith was the other wicket taker.
After tea it was our turn to bat, Cheesy and Brad got us of to a good start before Cheesy was caught for 25. We lost wickets often and at 25 overs were 6 wickets down, a good partnership between Ryan Fabrici and Dane Heffernan saw them see off the last ten overs of the day to leave us 6/91.
With not much separating us it is sure to be an interesting 2nd day.
