Poidevin Gray vs Fairfield-Liverpool - Round 1 - 2011/12

The Gordon PGs side for 2011/2012 had their first outing against Fairfield-Liverpool in a 20/20. Having had a good session with 1st grade coach Mark O’Neil during the week, the hopes were high for the younger brigade of Stags that they would be able to kick of the season with a win.

James Kidd charges in against the Lions

Unfortunately though the day did not quite go to plan, Skipper Colley lost the toss and we were in the field. Scott Heany and Dan Smith opened the bowling and along with Chad Soper and James Kidd bowled good lines to keep the Fairfield bats to a reasonable run rate. Though during the middle over, to their credit, the Fairfield bats really upped the run rate, with wickets in hand they were able to take some chances, hammering ball to all parts of the ground (most of which the Staggies fielders retrieved from either just inside or outside the fence).

After grabbing the key wicket of Luke Doran, the Stags came together and were asked to really put in a big effort from Captain Col, and the team obliged restricting Fairfield to a score of 177 of their allotted 20 overs. This was a good score and would take some chasing down but the Stags batsmen did not think it was out of reach and knew that 2 good partnerships would give us a chance.

Logan Weston takes a great catch, under the watchful eye of our roving cameraman

Unfortunately these partnerships never eventuated; Fairfield’s bowling was tight and gave nothing away forcing the Stags batsmen into some lose shots resulting in a steady loss of wickets, which never allowed the stags to put on a solid partnership as we had spoken about before the innings.

The one shining light for the Stags in the run chase was Kris Colley’s innings; he showed that 20/20 is not all about hitting the big shots but also about picking up 1ns and 2s and rotating the strike. Kris scored an impressive 33 looking good and falling late in the innings trying to get the team close to the target.

Kris Colley swings from the hip, trying to get his side close

Eventually the Stags finished 45 runs short of the target, obviously not the desired result although there were some good things to come out of the game. If we can fix up the areas we struggled in during this game then I’m sure there will be some good results in the not too distant future for this young team.

Henry Carmichael