Saturday Wrap: Dominant Davis, 4s Rebound, 1sts Capitulate, C&S Regular Season Concludes With a Bang
3rd March 2020
It was a series of one sided affairs on Saturday, with a couple of massive individual performances the highlight.
In 3rd Grade, starting the day at 1/10 our boys had a tricky chase of 162 to navigate, but made it look easy, with Uzair Ijaz Khan (30) and Barry Davis cruising to 104 before the second wicket. Once the target was in reach, Baz went ballistic, hitting 18 fours and 4 sixes in his knock of 138. When combined with his efforts in the bowling innings of 5/11 it's undoubtedly the performance of the year. We eventually reached 6/240 before declaring, and the returning Simon Massey, fresh off 25*, immediately got the breakthroughs in his spell of 2/2. The outright chase ended there, and the guys will be looking for another win next week to finish the year on a high.
4th Grade entered their second week against Wallsend with a simple equation - win to keep their finals hopes alive. After some early nervous moments, Brendan Cunningham (51) lifted us past Wallsend's 118 to declare at 9/152 and look for valuable outright points. We almost got there, reducing Wallsend to 6/45 before running out of overs, but most importantly found some form ahead of the final round.
1st and 2nd Grade continued their poor runs of form, after fairly even performances on day 1, both sides were heavily defeated on day 2, with 1sts losing outright. Grant Hines (20*) was the only shining light, once again batting well with the tail and keeping his wicket.
5ths came up against the undeated Newcastle City in their top of the table clash and were outclassed, bowled out for 60, of which Troy Harvey scored 33. The chase finished quickly, and they will need to regather their form against 3rd placed Merewether next week to secure a home final.
The C5s put on a show in their final game of the season, with a massive 521 runs scored in 70 overs of cricket. Hamilton North scored 281 batting first, with Matthew Quinn and Ryan Kelso taking 3 wickets apiece. In reply we scored 240, led by John Slobodniuk (64) and Troy McGrath (90) with the boys giving the record chase a red hot crack.
The D2s have narrowly managed to hold onto a finals spot after their loss against Teralba, and will now play the same opposition next week in the Semi Finals. Teralba bowled first and dismantled us for 66, but we did some damage with the ball ourselves, taking 7 wickets before Teralba got past the score. Good luck to Bears boys next week!
