2nd Grade vs Blacktown - Round 10 - 2011/12

We headed out west to Blacktown for round 10 of the competition. With the Team coming off a good win last week against Hawkesbury with both batting and bowling performing well we were confident that we could pull off another win.

Skipper, Ben Garratt - "Double 'R', Double 'T', Two 'A's" - takes six wickets for his side  

With a pointless 5km warm up run around Joe Mcaleer we were sent into bat on what looked to be a good wicket. Jordan got off the mark 1st ball but 3 balls later Justin hit one to short mid wicket for 0. Blair batted beautifully with Jordan and put on a good partnership of 73, both Batsmen looked solid at the crease playing lovely cover drives for 4 and putting away the loose ball.

Jordon fell on 27 and soon after Blair 40 and Ben 7 and Logan 8 all fell cheaply and at 5 for 134 we needed someone in the middle order to get us a total to defend and henry batted well for 33. 

Losing 9 for 83 there’s not much to talk about with most batsman falling cheaply hitting the ball in the air in front of the wicket. The deck was a bit slow and we didn’t play to the conditions.

With the bowlers feeling confident after last week’s performance, defending 158 was going to be hard work. 

Henry Carmichael shows his worth as an all-rounder 

Early wickets were going to be key and JC did this by picking up the opening bat to a good catch in the slips by Jordan. Adair and James bowled very tight and were not leaking runs. Ben and Henry took over from the openers and were brilliant.

Ben 6 for 28 bowled good lines and changed his pace to claim the Blacktown wickets. Henry 1 for 20 built up a lot of pressure and was unlucky not to pick up more wickets. Blair again bowling his handy spin in the middle of the innings picking up 1 for 18 did a great job. Once again all the bowlers put in a big effort to defend 158 to bowl out Blacktown for 133.

Big mention must go to BG picking up another 6fa. He has assessed the wicket in both games and his clever change of pace working perfectly on the slow wickets.

We have to keep performing when we get back to the longer format of the game to have a chance of making finals again.

Justin "Superstar" Avendano