The boys are on a roll with a big outright win. We needed to win this one outright and did with our batting gearing up another notch in the 2nd innings. Declaring our 1st innings 50 runs ahead was perfect timing as it gave us the time to roll them and them complete our run chase.

Day 2 of our first innings was highlighted by good positive batting from John and Nathan – in 11 overs we put on 76 runs to lead by 50. In their 2nd innings we started fast – getting 3 quick wickets but then had a return to the fumbles and put down 3 catches from batsmen that got runs. Despite the poor spell of catching, we still took 8 catches and Nathan got 4 of them behind the stumps to some very good bowling in a perfect channel – especially from Andrew, David and Patrick. Great to see Bryce follow-up his bowling effort last week with another good spell – the Ice Man is back. We finished their innings needing 121 off 20 overs in the last hour and whatever we could get between 4.45pm and 5.00pm – 24 overs in total.

Our turn to bat and we needed 121 at 5 an over. We did it in style. John and Nathan opened and batted superbly. Putting on 58 in fast time. John scored what looked like a lot more than 15 but with Nathan’s power hitting was a key platform. Enter Kishore and his hitting and we kept well ahead of the pace. At the end we got the runs in 18 overs at 6.7 runs an over. With the exception of a wobble in our catching in the 2nd innings we put in our best performance of the season.

We now have to win our next 2 games against Normanhurst (who are now behind us) and Glenhaven. Hornsby Green needs to drop one game and they are playing 1st and 2nd so a big chance here.

You get a sniff about how a team is going at this time of the season and we are on a roll big time. Catching (sometimes) aside, we don’t have a weakness. Our bowling has more depth and penetration than any other team and our batting is strong right down with almost 2 waves. The top order does the grinding stuff and the next part pulverizes the opposition. We may well have a bad day yet but so far so good.

Next steps
Basically we need to keep winning and hope that Hornsby loses one of their next 2 games – they play Glenhaven and St Ives. Plus, we need to build our quotient (the ratio of runs scored to runs scored against us). Our quotient is 0.8322 and Hornsby is 1.0909 – the higher the better (this doesn’t include this match). This means we need to take lots of wickets and lose as few wickets as possible – so Kishore your declaration yesterday was a master stroke.

By the way, have a look at the 'Photo Gallery' - our Legend and Aspiring Legend.

Ross A

Posted by Ross Anderson on February 4, 2007 06:12 AM