 The "Jazz" stalls in 2nd
The annual long-weekend grade fixture saw the 5th Grade “Jazz” strolling into Cabramatta Oval for a two day festival of the bat. With the main media focus being on the two big football fixtures, the build up to the 5th grade Gordon-Fairfield fixture was strangely subdued. This didn’t seem to affect the players who all arrived in high spirits, looking forward to two days of action.
Sajdeh playing defensively at cricket and in the love circles
New faces in the squad included Cam Brown, Charlie ‘Duck’ Turner and Huge Selby (spelling mistake intentional). The boys were pumped up for this fixture as Fairfield were the team that eliminated Gordon last season. With that in mind, the team agreed to ‘do it for Tweety’ and take revenge.
Fairfield won the toss and elected to field. The ultimate odd couple of Weaver and Sajdeh strode to the wicket and made a solid start for Gordon. Weaver had almost negotiated the first hour of play when he was cleaned up for 23. This brought Kenner to the wicket, who appeared to be limping worse than Molly Meldrum on a Sunday morning. Unable to take his usual quick singles, Kenner was a liability at the crease and quickly fell for 8. James ‘Marto’ Martin and Sunny forged a good partnership, which saw Sunny reach 49 not out. Upon reaching this milestone, Sunny attempted to lift Fairfield’s off-spinner into the local Vietnamese restaurant and only succeeded in being stumped by 4-5meters. Sunny, 49 out. At tea, Gordon 3-126.
After a 9/10 tea break (rated by Shenal “Scotty” Siriwarhane – resident tea critic) and some fine custard pasties (BOT), Gordon went back to work. Selby fell almost immediately to the only ball, all day, which turned and bounced. Brown followed quickly and when James “Manly” Martin was bowled for a well compiled 39, Gordon were reeling at 6-139.
 Enter ‘Foetus I’ (Justin Avendano) and Linford Cristie (Shenal). Watching Shenal batting with Justin was akin to watching a young Michael Jackson entertaining his fans at Neverland. This unlikely combination came together brilliantly for a timely 50 run partnership. Shenal was bowled for 32, bringing ‘Foetus II’ (James Ryan) to the wicket. At 7-193, the skipper was hoping for 220.
Foetus II (Ryan) at an even younger age!
What happened next was biology at its best. The two embryos took to the bowling like a small child taking to presents on Christmas morning. Youth is a beautiful thing, just ask Michael. Everything was going well, until Justin pulled his groin and could no longer run. Enter Christie. Having just run a 9.32 in the 100m dash earlier that day, Shenal was the obvious candidate to run for Justin. After running some extremely quick threes, Justin ‘Avocado’ Avendano was bowled for 44. He was closely followed by Ryan (29) and Charlie “Sir Don” Turner (1). Gordon all out 251.
DAY 2. After a quiet Saturday night, listening to Ian Higgins retrace his magnificent 116* innings ball-by-ball-by-ball-by-ball, the skipper was confident of defending the 251 posted by his team just the day before. Marto and Charlie were brimming with excitement, with the grand final only hours away, but there was hard work to be done yet.
The team knew that with the dead nature of the pitch, we had to strike with the new ball. Enter the Duck. The Duck is known for many things, martial arts, boxing, throwing-up and of course his crafty outswing bowling. Sunday was the Duck’s day. By 1.20pm Charlie had the figures of 6-37 and Fairfield were 6-73. With Shenal picking up the seventh wicket just before tea Gordon were well on top and an early finished seemed inevitable.
Justin was planning his afternoon golf game, Marto and Charlie were gearing up for the reserve grade grand final and Sunny was thinking of getting some beauty sleep before his date. To add to this, Fairfield produced another sterling tea, which the lads got stuck into.
I don’t know whether it was the BBQ meatlovers pizza, or just the inevitable air that overcame the game, but the 5s seemed to switch off after tea. Shenal, Hugh, Justin and JC “Hernandz” toiled hard, but with the pitch providing no assistance Fairfield fought their way back into the game. A brave knock from their skipper of 102* saw the Lions home with two wickets to spare, and a very disappointed away dressing room.
It was a game that Gordon dominated up until the last session, and the team will take a valuable lesson from this loss. To add to the Duck and Marto’s troubles, they missed the reserve grade grand-final and Manly got smashed. Bad luck boys. At least Sunny had a bit more luck on his date.
Until next week, you stay classy Cabramatta Sportsground.
Sticks
Mike Weaver quote of the week: “How old is his mum? Well I’m only being realistic!” | 
