4th Grade vs Easts - Round 3 - 2011/12

Saturday morning started normally with my standard 10am wake up, however the strong beam of light that protruded into my bedroom got me thinking, I do not want to field today. Upon arriving at the ground my thoughts were mirrored by the rest of the team, with numerous insults and threats being thrown at Captain Shayne “Rin” Lin.

Adam Fleming bowls a 'steady' line whilst Shayne "Rin" Lin waits for the catch

With that in mind Shayne decided that he would again lose the toss for the 3rd time straight this year, after having a year of Rinny winning ever toss, losing the toss has been a hard thing for the team to swallow. With his head down Rinny had to inform us all that he had indeed lost the loss and we would be fielding, as the 4th grade team is a hard team to impress, Rin was subjected to some concentrated ‘banter’ for the next half an hour.

However with that behind us all and the jokes aside, we came out onto the ground in the usual high spirits expecting early wickets that we had seen from Killara this year. With that in mind Lines after 2 weeks of watching Pat Effeney and James Kidd take the wickets, decided that he himself would take 5 this week.

Having Easts 4/10 of 8 overs was the desired start with Linesy having figures of 3/10 and ‘steady’ bowling from Fleming of 1/0 of his 4 overs.

However seeing the new batsman Chapman walking out for Easts I feared that the innings was far from over, knowing the damage that a Chapman can do to a bowling team.

The only way to combat a Chapman is to bring another one on to bowl. This was one of the standout moves of Rinny’s captaincy this year. Tom Gooch and I managed to stem the run flow with Goochy picking up a wicket. Some loose fielding allowed a partnership of about 30 runs in 25 overs. However, some quick wickets from Cubbage before tea allowed ourselves to proceed to tea with Easts 8 down for 80 odd, from 45 overs.

After tea everybody was well and truly over watching Easts bat, we came out switched on and upbeat to finish this innings off quickly. Lines, being easily subjected to peer pressure, was subject to some choice ‘banter’ from myself and Fleming from mid off and mid on. This got Lines as fired up as possible for him, and he proceeded to clean up the last 2 wickets with Easts bowled out for 87 from 50 overs.

As Colley and Mike padded up for chase down this low total, Rinny stressed the fact that if we bat our natural way we would chase the total down and have 6 points by the end of the day. While on the way to a decent start Mike was fired out LBW. This bought another mini collapse to our struggling top and middle order as we slumped to 5/40, however Kris Colley, being the rock of the innings, was still out there scoring at an Easts’ run rate.

With the hopes of the team resting on Shayne, you could say that the dressing room was a little on edge, considering that it wasn’t after Christmas and it being common knowledge that Shayne doesn’t score runs until after Christmas.

Andrew Chapman displaying good form with the ball in the early season

However with his team needing him and numerous hash tags of #cubbageforcaptain circulating on twitter, Shayne stepped up and blasted 65 from 40 odd balls including some huge 6’s onto the top of the pavilion and even ruining the tennis game of some old ladies, as the constant call of heads was shouted out in their direction.

Kris even managed to hit some clean balls and end up at 47 not out, proving that he may be of some use in the T20’s. With the 6 points secured and a declaration overnight in mind Shayne was caught on the boundary ending his entertaining innings, Cubbage headed out with direct orders to go for it, so in try Cubby style he blocked and left the remaining balls of the day. Day 1 finished with Gordon hitting 6/167 from 29 overs and an 80 run lead.

With the declaration made overnight before the beginning of Day 2, Easts came out to bat facing a modest 80 run deficit, however we became instantly worried when Chapman came out to open for Easts. This move highlighted Easts strategy for the day, which was to edge anything on the stumps and play and miss at everything just outside off.

In a day of cricket which many of us will want to forget, Fleming and Linesy again started brilliantly has we had Easts 3/20, however steady slow partnerships and few wickets in clumps didn’t allow us to bowl Easts out until 4:52pm. Even Cubbage had economical figures of 3/58 from 25 overs, along with the standard steady figures from Flem of 1-9 from 9 overs and Linesy and Goochy bowling very well for 2 and 3 wickets respectively.

With 28 minutes to chase down 80 “Rin” and Sherman opened up to do some damage, however Rin ran Pic out and then followed shortly after – along with Crossland – leaving the game now well and truly out of our grasp. The game was called off and the hot topic for most of the afternoon GDCC poker was less than 2 hours away.

The general consensus at the end of the game was to drink the memory of Day 2 away and everyone delivered that night, especially Moth coming up with the idea of the night for Taylor. As soon as beer entered Rin’s mouth he was straight onto twitter to #thefirststupidsayingthatcameintohishead, as after the poker night we headed off to the Crowie. To quote Cubby’s “check in”, we were all murdering a fair few rums.

And what was a great night for team and club bonding took place and was then re-capped on Twitter the next day, along with the 4th Grade plus Taity’s standard hash tag of #cubbageforcaptain. Of course this bonding was let down by the Barker contingent of the team who, just as at school, failed to keep up with the dominant Knox component of the team.

Andrew ‘MB/MVD’ Chapman