Cricket season has come around again and the Reds were looking to improve on last seasons disappointing performance. It was good to see the sunshine at our first game after last season’s poor weather. Our Captain, Blake won the toss and put in a confident Upper Hills team to bat. Last year, Upper Hills made the grand final and lost narrowly, so we knew this would be a very tough assignment

We started well with three early wickets including an incredible catch in the gully by Anjan off Peter to claim our 2nd wicket of the day. Upper Hills started to string some partnerships together and the fielding became sloppy. Our fielding was our Achilles heel last season. Upper Hills reached 6/224 before Alex ripped through the tail claiming 4 wickets in 2 overs to finish with the stunning figures of 7/29. Not bad effort to start the season in the field by the boys. The field was fast and at one stage we looked like chasing a score around 300. Our openers faced one over and we went in at stumps at 0/2.

Week 2 our game plan was simple, bat 60 overs! We didn’t quite bat 60 overs because we didn’t need to. This was mainly thanks to a great partnership from Anjan and Alex (241 runs) which equalled the Association record for highest 4th wicket partnership. Anjan scored 149 off 146 balls and he was only denied 150 after an unbelievable catch at short cover. Alex finished with 109 not out off 85 balls. This is an incredible achievement by these two batsmen. The Reds finished the day's play with 6/338 which was also a club record for highest total in an U/16’s match.

This was a great performance by the boys and an awesome start to the season. We look forward to many more wins this season.

Coach’s man of the match – Alex Rashleigh, Anjan Oberai – for their 241 run partnership and maiden centuries.

Posted by Peter Andrew Rashleigh on September 27, 2008 09:04 AM