A fine warm day greeted us for the last Saturday of cricket for the season. With the Eagles, Kilda & Rebels all playing in their respective One Day finals. The Turkeys also had it all to play for as they attempted to win the Junior Bing Harris Trophy.
The Eagles were up against NEV down at Logan Park. After winning the toss skipper Taylor Cumberland decided to have a bat on what looked like a pretty flat deck. Openers Lucky Singh (30) and Hugo Bogue (58) got things off to a good start putting on 72 for the first wicket. We went to drinks at 105/2 and felt we were in a good position to push onto a good total. Unfortunately, after the drinks break we lost three wickets fairly quickly to be sitting at 125/5 at the end of 28 overs. Taylor was at the wicket with Patrick Arnold and we really got tied down and could only manage 15 runs in the next 13 overs and in a 50 over contest that is always going to make it difficult to set a good total. Patrick just to get the scoring moving but was out for 18 in the 43rd over. Matt West received a promotion in the order and this certainly paid off as he really got things going and finished on 44* off just 25 balls. At the other end Taylor also changed gears as he increased his scoring to also end up undefeated on 50. So a total of 226/6 was were we finished and we felt this was around 20-30 short of a good total, so we would in all likelihood need to roll Valley to secure a victory.
Tommy Clout took the new ball and he steamed in and picked up both openers early on to have Valley at 13/2. Tommy followed this up a couple of overs later as Valley sat at 41/3. Unfortunately, our other bowlers could not get on top and Valley moved their score onto 162 before James Brown made a break thru and followed up with another wicket in his next over. In the over between Jame’s two wickets Matt West struck so Valley was now under some pressure at 168/6. They then steadied and they managed a 37 run partnership to move the game back in their favour when Patrick picked up the 7th wicket at 205. They then managed to eak out the remaining runs to secure a three wicket victory.
The Turkeys were over at Bishopscourt and a win for them would secure the Junior Bing trophy. After losing the toss the Turkeys found themselves having a bowl with skipper Brad Thomson taking the new ball with Ben James – no success in their opening spells but Brad bowled tightly. Richie Buchanan came in at first change and took two wickets in a tight four over spell. A good partnership developed and the score moved to 130 when Freddy claimed his first wicket. Back for a second spell Richie then claimed his third before Brad returned to finish off the overs and he also picked up a wicket to finish with tidy figures of 1/19 off his seven over as Valley moved to 197/6 off their 45 overs.
Natan Sims & Brooklyn Lee Sang (great team man he is had flown down from Auckland for the match as the lads were struggling a little for numbers) got the innings off to an excellent start and put on 105 for the first wicket when Nathan was out for 68 (off just 51 balls). Freddy joined Brooky and the score moved to 124 when Brooky was out for a patient 31. Freddy keep the scoreboard moving before he was out for 53 with the finish line in sight The Steel brothers (again thanks to both Scott and Craig for stepping in to help the lads out) finished the game off in the 34th over for a comfortable six wicket victory and this secured the Junior Bing for the team.
Next door on the No 2 ground the HG Super Chunks took on University-Grange and after losing the toss found themselves having a bowl. The SC got off to an excellent start with Binu Antony striking three times and Kapila Gunarathna and skipper Firoz Sait also chipping in to reduce UG to 6/46. Two more wickets to Kapila brought things back after a partnership and at 8/115 things looked good. Unfortunately, UG put their heads down and moved the scored to 174 before Paramjit Singh struck twice to have the final score at 175.
The SC reply was similar to the UG start and they found themselves at 4/47. It was only Sunny Singh who showed any real resistance as he fought his way to 55 (off 62 balls) and was 9th out, but the rest of the order was unable to support him and the SC were all out in the 24th over for just 107.
The Kilda were out at Sunnyvale for their final against GI Gators and also losing the toss found themselves batting. Kirk Brocklebank and Chris Morris opened up and put on yet another good partnership before Kirk was out for 21. Andy Arnold, back from the Over 60’s tournament, found the pace a bit sharp and was gone for 10. This left Morrie and Mark Somerville to keep the scoring rolling along. Whist Morrie was a little more circumspect in making 77 (off 102 balls) Somers rapidly scored 84 (off just 69 balls). A couple of quickfire knocks from Kieran Parker (13) and Ryan Wheeler (16) saw the score race to 262/7 when their 40 overs were finished.
As I initially go to print GI have not put up their innings – but I can report skipper Scott McCormack took 4 wickets in a comfortable victory for the Kilda.
The Rebels, having finished top of the table, hosed their final at Culling Park against the NEV Veterans. After winning the toss they decided to have a bat and unfortunately picked the wrong game for the boys to put in their worst performance of the season as they were bundles out for just 82 with Caleb Marfell (19), Charles Hendry (18) and Dom Hailes (16) the only players to make double figures.
The Vets quickly chased this down with Charles & Caleb taking a wicket a piece in the eight wicket loss.