Another brilliant effort against one of the top sides.

Day 1
After winning the toss, John put Ku ring gai in to bat. Our start was brilliant with early wickets falling steadily. At one stage they were 5/20 then 6/30. After a bit of a recovery we had them 8/120 – still a very good result on a ground (North Turramurra) that had short straight boundaries.

At one stage we were looking at getting them out quickly, scoring the runs and having a second go at their batting – but not to be.

After the break we put down a couple of catches that allowed them to get away to an imposing score. Ku ring gai are one of those teams who are hitters and on their day they can do damage right down the order – this was one of those days.

We ended up finishing them off for 265 with a good catch by Andrew Fiedler – an imposing target. With 22 overs to bat on day 1 we finished at 3/64 – an OK position and with batting fire power to come. It did help though having an opening over that lasted 17 balls!

Day 2
Andrew and Ross A put on 90 for the 4th wicket and this built a good platform. Andrew was outstanding. Putting those cross bat shots away for a while he played straight and looked really good. In typical style this year he hit one ball in the air around a fielder and was caught. His 79 was outstanding.

After Andrew, Michael McDowell hammered 26 with Andrew Watt doing similar. Everyone else got 20’s or thereabouts and contributed. By far the next best contributor after Andrew was Sundries – 58 of them which is an extraordinary number.

How about the effort of Michael Sainsbury. He last played for us way back in 1986/87 in A1 and A2 and has a career average of 32 – an outstanding player of the past but a big ask to do it again. He did with an invaluable 17* but he gave the stability in the final overs.

The finish said it all – Nathan arrived late after a big Christmas trade day for his business but he batted brilliantly. With 8 wickets down and 9 runs still needed he played a magnificent straight drive that just kept climbing over the fence – game set and match.

Wrap-upHow about this for a season so far:
• We turn on 46 points – the highest points total of any team in any other Grade
• Our quotient of 1.76 – one of the highest in the whole Comp and well above the next best in C1 – 1.17 I(Galston Glenorie
• For the 59 wickets we have lost in 8 games (average 29.86 / wicket) only our White team has lost fewer wickets
• For the 94 wickets we have taken (16.96 / wicket) only Pymble come close at 89.
• Added to this Ben McNamarra with 20 wickets is the Club’s top wicket taker with Andrew watt 7th with his 14 wickets
• In the batting Michael McDowell 306 at 61.20 and Ross A 217 at 36.17 are number 2 and 8 on the Club’s top 10 list.

All up, an outstanding effort but with 6 games to go before the big ones at the end we need to keep the momentum going. We still have Tony Hadley to come back into the side and with him the batting depth becomes awesome. Added to this is the return of Mark Taylor over the New Year break and this is looking very solid.

The test will be over the next 4 games – all 1-dayers. This often turns Comps around due to the different strengths sides have so if we hold these games we will be well placed.

Our objective is to win the Minor Premiership to make sure that if the Finals are rain affected we get through to the next level.

Next game
We play Galston-Glenorie at Campbell starting at 12.00 noon on the 5th January.

Ross A

Posted by Ross Anderson on December 26, 2007 06:56 AM