It’s late, for sure, but always good to get these posts out there, even if they are long forgotten. Read on below to see each captains take on their round 3 matches, with Minzy doing the twos report as guest writer.
Don’t forget about the current exclusive offer from Melbourne Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery – Click Here.
First XI
We were back playing at home for the first time of the season in our round 3 clash with Old Carey, who were up from Wright Sheild after winning the flag the previous season. They had also started the season with two promising victories, so we knew that they would be chock full of confidence.
Throughout the week we received the bad news that our new coach Mark Simpson would require knee surgery and be out for an extended time on the sidelines. We wish him well in his recovery and look forward to having him back amongst it post the Xmas break. This unfortunate outcome paved the way for big Jub – James Blair-Holt to come back into the team after some time out of it.
We won the toss and elected to bowl after a little bit of rain had got on the wicket throughout the morning. We started well with the ball, with Padbury taking 3 early wickets and back to his old best, standing the seam up and penetrating with fine outswing bowling. We had struggled in the first 2 games to make early inroads so this was pleasing. To Old Carey’s credit they had intent from the outset and continued to play shots, limiting the dot balls and rotating the strike with ease. While Watkins took 2 wickets and McNally, Taylor. S and Guley 1 apiece it was one of our poorest efforts with the ball as a group. Padbury went down with a hamstring midway through the innings and could therefore not come back to bowl at the death. This injury added to our forever increasing lack of mobility in the field, with Old Carey making us pay, regularly challenging our box men and boundary riders throughout the last half of the innings. A fielding performance we want to forget quickly! Old Carey finished their innings 8/208 off their 40 overs.
We knew we had to get off to a good start with the stick chasing a big total and that is exactly what we did, with Woods and McNally continuing with their developing partnership at the top of the order and managing to pile on 53 for the first wicket until McNally top edged a short delivery. Woods continued on his merry way walking at thier opening bowlers and plundering them to all parts of the oval. Joslin was dismissed with the score at 93 and at drinks we were 2/103 with a good foundation set to target the back end of the innings. Shortly after drinks Woods was dismissed for a really well made 59 and we then proceeded to lose regular wickets in chase of the target. Taylor. S worked hard through the overs of spin to make 30 and Blair-Holt gave us a chance with some powerful hitting towards the back end with 23 but our chase fizzled out, as we were restricted by Old Carey’s spinners. We were bowled out in the 38th over for 186. A disappointing result on many fronts. Hopefully some learnings to take away from the day and none more importantly than our energy and commitment in the field – needs to improve big time!
Lairdy on his way to a solid 40
We come up against our arch rivals in Nth Balwyn next week in a game that we need to bounce back and bounce back hard!
Second XI
The 2’s made the trek out to LaTrobe for round 3 and were welcomed by persistent grey clouds and a lush outfield which would make scoring boundaries hard to come by. The task ahead to notch up our second win of the season was made more difficult with the loss of four players from the previous week including skipper KJ. As such the responsibility of leading us to victory was given to Reg who promptly chose to bat first upon winning the toss given our dismal efforts to chase runs in previous games. Lairdy (40) once again got off to a solid start and despite the loss of two early wickets the innings was well poised before the wicket of Dan Bonnett (12) in the over before drinks at 3/77. From there the innings threatened to stall as Lairdy departed soon after. Enter young Fraser Baddon (32) who compiled a knock mature beyond his years, picking off singles and hitting over the top to give us a very defendable 144 at the end of the 40 overs with a little help from the extras column as well (33).
Fraser taking the areal route to 32*
Confidence was high as we walked out to bowl and Thorny (2/27 off 8) and Smit (1/25 off 6.1) once again provided the start we were looking for. Cully (0/9 off 7) and Shah (3/27 off 8) bowled superbly first change backing the openers up to have LaTrobe 3/34 at drinks. This was complimented by some great efforts in the field including direct hit run outs for both Cully and Harvs (2/15 off 5) and some quite brilliant fielding by Bonnett, who seemed to be everywhere, helping to bowl LaTrobe out for 122 in the 38th over, giving the Moths a great win and a vital 6 points.
Third XI
Round 3 saw the 3rd XI travel to Burwood. Burwood won the toss and elected to bowl first.
Div (21) and Galts (9) got us off to a positive start, with Divy hitting boundaries at will! Unfortunately the wicket of Galts saw us lose 4 wickets for just 10 runs having us 4/46. As we were looking at starting to consolidate nicely we lost Gaj and Greeds in succession and looked in big trouble at 6/65. Once again it was the lower order who stood up with Orch smashing them to all parts of the ground with a quick fire 30 to get us to 118 all out after just 34.1 overs.
With not a great target set we still believed we could get the win if we bowled and fielded well. With Orch opening the bowling (0/14 off 8) we were able to restrict Burwood early with Smitta (2/24) taking the first wicket having them 1/17. Bobby C (2/32) took the second wicket and through a brilliant direct hit from Orch had Burwood 3/35 and we were right in the match. Tim Noble bowled the house down (2/6 off 8) and with Bobby C taking another we looked right on top at 6/53. However Burwood managed to form a really good 56 run partnership to take the game away from us. We took a couple of late wickets to give us sniff but unfortunately fell short by 2 wickets. Once again probably 20-30 runs short of what we needed, which seems to be the theme of our season thus far.
Again a really good effort to fight it out till the end and I feel our first win is not far off! Go Monts!
Fourth XI
The 4s were at home for the first time this year against Edinburgh. We won the flick and decided to have a bat. Things looked shaky early when we lost 2 wickets for 4 runs, we then lost another wicket with the score only 3/22. From there, we started to find our groove with Jeff Mollison making a nicely compiled 30 before departing with the score on 54. Urmez Patel (57) and Paul Jackson (38) turned the innings around with a great partnership of 88 for the 5th wicket. Michael Lee gave us a quick 23 at the end to get the score to 7/188 off our 40 overs. This was our best total for the season so far and a good platform to bowl with.
Edinburgh came out and made a quick start with one of the openers going for everything. Rufus McLean (1/26 off 8) was able to get him out early enough with Luke Pelchen having 5 grabs at the catch at cover to dismiss him. From there, Edinburgh put on 63 for the second wicket as we lost our way a bit. After a quick drink, we came back out with some renewed energy and Quentin McLean (1/32 off 8) got the breakthrough for us. After this Edinburgh were able to scrape together a few 25-30 run partnerships that got them within 4 runs of the target at the start of the last over. The over started amazingly for us with Jimmy Wright getting 2 wickets in the first 2 balls of the over and a young fella at 9 coming out to the crease. We went to put the squeeze on him and unfortunately, he managed to flick one away for 4 and win Edinburgh the game with 3 balls to spare. A heartbreaking loss and we will rue some poor deliveries bowled throughout the innings. Saying that though, it was a considerable improvement from previous weeks and hopefully will give us some more confidence going forward.
Fifth XI
Mont Albert were hosted by Malvern Valley. The skipper lost the toss and we were, rather surprisingly, invited to bat.
We got of to a good start, 1/69 at drinks. But we lost our way in the second half of the innings. We lost 7 wickets for 10 runs and were bowled out for 114. Our best batsman was T. Sundries who made 34 and he was well support by Mark Sowden (24) and Adwait Patil (13).
We had to bowl and field well to have a chance. James Nash made an early break throw in the second over of the innings with a terrific ball that clipped the top off. But things went downhill from there. That was our only wicket for the match. We did not field well and we put down four catches. Terry Smit bowled valiantly and end up with the figures of 0/7 off seven.
Overall, a very disappointing day.
*Always keen for more photos if anyone is keen to take them on game day. Even a few phone snaps would be great from each match.