Seniors Fourth Round Day 1 Reports
Firsts take a battering at the crease, but, fight back with the ball.
We won the toss and batted.
Started off ok before we lost a few early wickets with their import from Sri Lanka getting on top off us.
Unfortunately we never really got on top with our batting, with only two guys making it to double figures. The highlight with the bat had to be Trent Fitzgerald, making his top score for the club with 47. Giving credit when it is due, I thought they bowled very well and whilst we were solid with the bat, they never really allowed us to get on top and we found ourselves all out for 107.
We did however have just over an our to bowl at them. In the hunt for early wickets, Cam Wheeler was very good and managed to get himself two wickets, and Steve Deller continued to bowl in good areas and got rewarded with one.
They are 3/30 overnight chasing 107 and with a couple of their good bats in the shed the game is fairly evenly poised. Next week should be a tight game and hopefully will swing our way.
Seconds in a tight match, but, confident of a good result.
Coming off a draw, and placing a pause on the two's winning streak, the gators faced off against the Footballers at Picketts Reserve. Winning the toss, Eraj elected to bat, which was also a strategic move on the scorching hot day!
Once again a new look team took the field, the two's had a long batting line up and one of the most strongest batting line ups this season. In what looked to be a fast outfield, the gators got off to a decent start before losing Chris Harris on 6. Kallum was looking in fine form, knocking the ball around with ease whilst also playing some textbook shots. Luckily for the Footballers, they had a bowler come down from the first's, and he took to the Gators strong batting line up. With three top names: Rob, Brad, John all falling for less than ten, the Gators were placed on the back foot and were 4/80. Unfortunately, Kallum fell victim to the strike bowler, but made a powerful innings of 72. Paul Wiles came to the crease and looked convincing before he received a ball that simply beat him and was dismissed for 21. Batting down the order this game, Rob Gough came in at 7, and was seeing the ball nicely but quickly ran out of partners and tried to take the game into his hands before getting caught on the boundary for 45, leaving the Gators with a defend-able total of 180.
With being bowled out in the 53rd over and time left to spare, the Gators had 26 overs/until 6pm to bowl at the Footballers, who were full of confidence. Eraj finally hit some form with the ball and broke his drought of not taking a wicket since the first game, and ended up with 3/22 off 10, who bowled well in partnership with Brad Croxford with 0/18 off 7. The Gators have the Footballers 3/54, which is going to be a close and interesting match next week.
Threes in the balance
The 3rds hosted Lysterfield at Llewellyn Reserve and after losing the toss we were sent into bat.
We lost wickets continually throughout our innings, with a few batsmen making starts with Mark Argus (15) and Cam Davey (14), but the pick of the batsmen was Michael Wheeler with 33. We finished the 35 over phase at 7/104 with Evert Marjee and Ryan Fabrici at the crease.
After tea we started our bowling phase and Lysterfield managed to score quickly. As well as been unlucky we didn't take our chances either including the captain dropping an absolute sitter. Cam Davey bowled well opening and took a wicket, Ryan Fabrici bowled well also and was unlucky not to have one himself with 2 dropped catches in an over. Lysterfield were on top at this stage until James Brown and Luke Heads came onto bowl with James taking his 1st wicket for the club and Luke finishing with 2. Evert also had a great piece of fielding giving us a run-out. At the end of the day Lysterfield finished 5/139.
