We had a successful weekend, with strong wins for the First XI, Second XI and Fourth XI. The Third XI fell agonisingly short, whilst the Fifth XI just couldn’t get things going.
First XI
We arrived to Canterbury excited for the opportunity to redeem ourselves after a disappointing loss against them in Round 1. We lost the toss and were sent into bat. After losing 2 early wickets, Brown and Blair-Holt put on a well compiled 54 run partnership before Brown was dismissed for 46. Blair-Holt continued to play freely and club some lusty blows over the short straight boundaries before he was castled for a terrific 60. We unfortunately lost regular wickets towards the back end and were restricted to 8/178 off our 40 overs.
We knew we had to bowl and field a lot better than we had in Round 1 and we started brilliantly with Padbury taking an early wicket. Canterbury then compiled a big partnership for the 2nd wicket, although we were able to stunt their run rate through disciplined bowling and good fielding. Woods threw the stumps down to break the long partnership, which went a long way to helping us restrict Canterbury to 5/164 off their 40. Padbury and Watkins both claimed 2 wickets.
A hard fought win and great to get on the board for season 2018/19!
Go Monts!
Second XI
After a disappointing wash out last week, the twos were keen to get stuck into Canterbury for a second time in three weeks. Back into the side for the first time this year were Roy Taylor and Reg Cooper and making his 2nd XI debut was Callum Beasley.
We won the toss and elected to bat, and after an early wicket Reg (24) and Daffey were able to consolidate to have us only 1 down at drinks. After the dismissal of Cooper, Bonnett (32) and Daffey pressed on to get us a solid total of 4/151. Daffey ended up carrying his bat for 72* achieving a goal of ours to have one of the top four bat through the innings.
Cully (1/5) and Roy (1/6) got our bowling innings off to a very tight start not missing our regular fourth stump line and conceding very few runs in the first ten overs. From that point Canterbury’s innings was never allowed to get going, as we took 6/7 to rip through their top and middle order with Power and Fernandes going on to take 4 and 3 wickets respectively. Singh was also able to keep it tight and grab a wicket himself as we eventually bowled them out for 65.
Overall a pleasing result which sees us banking early points as we look onto North Balwyn at home next week.
Third XI
The Third XI played Hawthorn for the second time in three games at St James Park. We lost the toss and were asked to field. They signalled their intentions early, going hard from ball one and getting a few to the boundary, but tight bowling through the middle overs brought us back into the game. Minzy the chief destroyer with 3/15, ably supported by Boof (2/28) and Big Papa (1/18), Hawthorn were bowled out for 127 in 38.
We were in trouble early, losing Minzy to a well-directed yorker in the first over, before Boof and Rawls got together and put on 30 before Boof fell. As soon as we started to build a base, a wicket would fall and put us on the back foot again. Joel Guley (39) was the stand out with the bat, playing arguably his best innings in the threes, and showing us all what he’s capable of.
Unfortunately, with only two partnerships in the 30s, we never really looked like it, right until the very end when Nobby bombed a massive 6 to give us a sniff, but the task proved too tall and we fell 1 run short.
While disappointing not to win, we were in it until the last ball, an improvement on last week
Fourth XI
The 4s again faced off against Hawthorn at Elgar Park and with only 10 players got the job done comfortably once again. Winning the toss and batting first we made a fantastic score of 256. Rick Barker and Udhav Goenka both notching up 50s and Craig Vollmer terrorising one bowler with 4 consecutive 6s in an over. Darcy Stephenson on debut also played some nice shots at the end of the innings.
In the field after tea, some tight bowling and disciplined fielding meant we rolled Hawthorn for 107. Goenka, Dean, Mollison and new pom recruit Tom Stark all getting a wicket. However, the main star of the day was Morgan Gason in his second game for Mont Albert. Doing us a favour by filling in again this week, he was simply too good for the Hawthorn batsman and took 6/20 off his 8 overs. 2 wins on the trot plus a healthy percentage means we are in a great position for the rest of the season.
Fifth XI
MACC 9/89 def by Manningham 4/92
Wickets again to Rufus (2/17) and Quentin (1/30) McLean. Filling in for the first time this year, Alex Rathbone made 22.