Cricketers face heavy playing surfaces
Wednesday December 3, 2008
Low scores were the feature of last weekend’s round of senior cricket matches, which was due to some excellent bowling, poor stroke options by batsmen and the heavy playing surfaces as a result of Friday’s rain.
The turf wicket was unplayable due to the rain and the match between Nymagee and RSL Club had to be moved over to Ward Oval No 3’s synthetic wicket.
Nymagee was trying to win back the Bert Oldfield Challenge Cup, a trophy which they had previously held for a major portion of the last five or six years and RSL were defending the Cup for the first time this season since beating Colts in their last match.
RSL captain Glenn Spinks won the toss and decided to bat first with opening batsmen Peter Neale and Scott Brown making a cautious start against some very tight bowling from Nymagee’s opening bowling attack of Doug North and Phil Harley.
RSL lost their first wicket in the 17th over with the score of 40 when Brown was bowled by John Potter for six.
Spinks came to the crease and took the score along to 72 before being given out to a LBW decision for eight.
Nymagee captain North then brought himself back into the bowling attack with immediate results dismissing Neale, caught behind for a well compiled 42.
A feature of his innings was his front foot cover and off driving shots.
RSL had lost three wickets for 87 however from this point they lost regular wickets to eventually be all out for 104 at the start of the 36th over.
Neale was the only RSL batsman to reach double figures with sundries being the next top score of 24.
North finished with the excellent bowling figures of six wickets for seven runs from nine overs.
Other wicket takers were John Potter 2/32, Michael Warren 1/23 and Matt Russell 1/5.
Nymagee started their run chase in confident fashion with openers Jade Buckman and David Betts taking the score along to 30 before Buckman was dismissed for 19.
Betts was dismissed from the very next ball for three and when the wickets of Roger Mitchell and Greg Mitchell fell quickly after, both LBW to the bowling of Spinks, Nymagee
had slumped to 4/40 at the first drinks
break.
Things were to become even more serious for Nymagee in the first over after drinks when Simon Prince took three further wickets including the valuable wickets of North for four and Harley for a duck.
Nymagee were eventually all out for 50.
Buckman was the only batsman to reach double figures with sundries next top score of 11.
Spinks finished with bowling figures of four for eight from seven overs and Simon Prince 4/9 from five overs.
Shane Munro was the other wicket taker with 2/20 from seven overs.
The other match on No 2 Oval was between GW Colts and Atlas Copco/Golfy 2.
GW Colts captain Stewart Fraser won the toss and batted first however may have been cursing his decision after their three most experienced players (Fraser, Mal Hillier and Steve Nicholson) had been dismissed with the score of only 16.
Craig Tanke 15, Alex Fraser 14 and David Watson 13, helped Colts to reach a total of 75.
Best bowling figures for Atlas Copco/Golfy 2 were Terry Roberts with 5/16 and Jake Harbison with 3/24. Nicola Harbison was the other wicket taker with 1/1.
Atlas Copco/Golfy 2 commenced their run chase in much the same fashion as GW Colts losing their first four wickets for 16 runs including the important wickets of Jake Harbison for two, Damien Harbison for three and Bill Behsman for a duck.
Captain Robbie Mitchell and Bryan Manns attempted to resurrect the position, however when Manns was dismissed for seven, the next four batsmen were all dismissed for ducks and Atlas Copco/Golfy 2 were all out for 55.
Mitchell remained 23 not out with sundries next top score of 12.
Best bowling figures for GW Colts were Fraser with 3/8, Hillier 3/17, Tanke 2/9 and Nicholson 1/9.
This weekend RSL Club will defend the Bert Oldfield Cup against Atlas Copco/Golfy 2 on the turf wicket.—contributed
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