1^st Grade (JP) 3/154 lost to Galston-Glenorie 6/154 – match report to follow.

2^nd Grade Blue (Rick) defeated on forfeit Galston-Glenorie – a shame to have the game not get started but it all happens next weekend with the main Comp starting.

2^nd Grade Red (Napper) 7/127 defeated St Ives 7/104 – Naps won the toss and decided to bat in very different conditions to the previous week. After losing 3 quick wickets, we found ourselves sitting at 3/21 after 6 overs.

Alex Connell (55) opened the innings and watched the wickets fall at the opposite end until he was joined at the crease by Cameron Price (23). The pair put on a quick fire 38 run partnership to see the score move to 4/49 when Cameron was dismissed. Ian Williams (10) who was helping out from D2, supported Alex and kept the score ticking along. Kyle Townsend (22) helped to put on a 55 run partnership before Alex was finally dismissed in the 19th over.

The bowling started off tight and helped to put pressure on the Opposition batsmen. Kyle Townsend (1/6) got the first breakthrough thanks to a great catch by Alex behind the stumps down the leg side. Aaron Hawkins came on and took 2 wickets in his first 2 balls.

Azza went on to finish with 3/9. Wickets were shared amongst the bowlers. Tis Mistry 1/20, Snumpty 1/23, Kyle 1/6, Naps 1/18. We now head in to the main season with the first victory under our belt.

3^rd Grade Blue 6/106 lost to St Ives 5/107 – first outing of the season for most of the boys, given we had a bye last week. And what a day of weather we had today!

Anyways we were batting first after losing toss. Ian Paterson and Eric Junkkari got proceedings well for us with team score on 18 into the second over. Ian was first one out with team score on 18. Another small partnership between Eric and Ryan Gunn before Eric was out with team score on 2/41 after 6th over. Few more quick wickets and we were 5/52 at half way mark. Varun Ravindran (15) batted well to put a small partnership with Pratah Sinnetamby. Pratah (25 no.) and Ryan Loveridge (11 no.) helped score to a decent 6/106 after 20th over.

In bowling as one would expect with first outing, bowlers needed some time before starting to hit good areas. Dean Carlin got first breakthroughs in 3rd and 5th overs. Second change Matt Digby came with third wicket with a good low catch by Phil Hayes.

After this the Opposition put on a decent partnership with our catching looking bit comical, giving lives to their batsmen.

Eric got the breakthrough needed for us to have a chance in last few overs. With 6 needed of last over, match was lost with completion of 4th ball. A good outing for all to kick start season!

3^rd Grade Red (Buzz) 7/80 lost to Sydney Lions 2/81 – it started well with Buzz winning his second toss (Bad news for the C3 team for the rest of the season, as that’s probably the last one!) and we decided to have a bat. Mixing up the batting order to make sure those who didn’t get a go last week had their chance, we faced some accurate stuff from the Opposition which stifled the run rate and left us at only 2/21 after 10 overs. The second 10 yielded a better return with Sam Hando smashing a few and a late flurry from Nandu (3×6) to end up with 80 on the board after our 20 overs (Nandu remaining 28*).

With a low score to defend, unfortunately the opposition were always in control and passed our score only two down in the 13th over. Rommel and Asess picked up a wicket each, but on the day the best we could take away was that we are all warmed up and itching for the season proper to start next week!

4^th Grade Blue (Fieds) 7/156 defeated ARL 3/126 –losing the toss at a dry Mt. Ku-ring-gai Oval we were sent in to bat. We made a solid if slow start with Warren Schwartzel (12) seeing off the openers battling through a pulled hammy. The run rate managed to pick up in the back end of the innings with the youngsters running well between the wickets. Will Harvey continued his good form (43*) with good contributions from Connor Hindmarsh (28) and Ollie Linschoten (17).

Our turn to bowl and Jack Barry (1/7) made a great start snatching a wicket in his first over. Great efforts in the field kept runs hard to come by, and all the bowlers managed to keep things tight with Dylan Bish the standout (1/14). A great win in the end and now looking forward to Semi Finals.

4^th Grade Red (Indranil) 8/137 lost to Kissing Point 6/142 – second game of the season and the team was looking forward to warming up a bit little more and get their eyes in. Start was excellent with Graham Craig (20) and Sreeni Pillamarri (38) providing a solid opening partnership. Sreeni showed some vintage form with some firebrand heavy hitting.

Kissing Point change bowlers started bowling tight line and we lost some momentum from 9th over till 14th in which we scored only 11 runs and lost couple of wickets. We conceded a lot of dot balls and lost some more wickets and our batsmen getting early season muscle injuries making it difficult to run between the wickets.

In conditions where 140 was looking a par score, we were looking far off. Brent Van Wyk (36) turned the proceedings in the middle with power hitting and getting the Pointers bush bashing to find the ball. The Pointers were looking helpless and their players came up inquiring about Brent’s ratings! Brent took 10 balls to score his runs. We got the necessary acceleration before Brent departed and Indranil (19) came in and closed off our innings with some clean hits.

Total was looking good and where we would have liked it to be.

Come our turn bowling, things were a bit difficult. Our bowling order was in disarray struggling with past and on-field injuries. Point took advantage of our tardy line-up and scored some quick runs. We conceded lots of extras which didn’t help.

Rowan Dickinson (1/15) and Amit Sen (1/15) bowled tight line to open with but we lost a bit of our way in the middle. Graham Craig (2/41) came in to the rescue in the absence of regular bowlers. Ben Kinchington (1/13) proved he is always in action with an excellent catch in the deep and a great throw for a run out. In the end we did well to pull the game down to the last over.

Just about time the cobwebs were blown and the team is warmed up. Important point to note that pre-game warm up would be as important to avoid on-field injuries.

Hoping that the team will recover and fire-up in time for the main season starting next week.

All the best to all the other grades and T20 finals qualifiers.

5^th Grade Blue (Gautam) 7/83 lost to Hornsby 5/95 – losing the toss and being put in to bat, we lost a wicket in the first over. From then on there was a steady loss of wickets with not many runs scored. This left us at 7/83 after 20 overs with Gautam top scoring on 50.

Our bowling started nicely, takings wickets in the 2nd and 5th overs. However, Hornsby batted well to easily score our runs by the 15th over, only being 5 down. The wickets came from Roshan, Connor, Siby and Marcus.

5^th Grade Red (Captain Mike) 8/75 lost to St Ives 1/76 – this match was played at Karuah Oval against a St Ives team consisting mainly of C2 & C3 players. Our team were all D2 grade apart from 1 player. The pitch was OK apart from the extra crease line at each end which were from Junior games we assume. As well the grass hadn’t been cut for a while.

We lost the toss and were put into bat. Only 2 players got above 10 runs. Aayush Tamhankar hit 20 before being caught and Steve Quanborough hit 14. Unfortunately we only hit 75 runs before being bowled out at the end of the 17th over. St Ives then sent in some big hitters. They managed to get the 76 runs required in 8 overs for the loss of 1wicket through Agniva Chakaborthy’s good bowling.

We were somewhat unlucky today. There was some poor decision making and calling with 2 run outs occurring. Some of our ‘outs‘ were due to lack of experience and newness.

Our bowling is still a work in progress. We also did bowl and bat people who didn’t get a go last week. However, it shouldn’t deter anyone from achieving better results in the main rounds as the Opposition team was well and truly above the usual D2 grade.