Unley Cricket Club

C Grade Report Round 2 (21 & 28 Oct 2006) Unley v PAOC

S. Safralidis

This week again Party Pete was placed in charge of the C grade, due to a distinct lack of numbers on the player side. He went for the youth policy, with 1 player in the team under the age of 30 (hi Jackson).

We batted on week 1, opening with Murph and Garry Harris.. Garry was gone early, and soon after Unley new boy Lang ran himself out to have us around 2/20.

This brought Tony 'Silver Fox' Fiore to the crease however, and him and Murph then set about putting a score on the board.

At the long break we were 2/110 and looking to post a really big score. Unfortunately Murph fell soon after for an excellent 65, and with balls starting to stay low a collapse ensued. Other than Tony's unlucky 49, the rest of the team struggled to make double figures, Party ran out of partners again down the order. The total was 160, which we thought was about 40 short of a good score. One of the highlights of the first Saturday was the umpiring of Paul Barratt, new to the club, he's decided to lend us his skills & umpire for the season, he must've turned down 50 LBW appeals (no, seriously) as PAOC had a case of the Pakistan early 90's...

PAOC had the option of batting for 6 overs, but declined... All to play for on the 2nd week.
Another beautiful day on week 2, and after speaking to the PAOC players, they expected more of the same (i.e. ball to stay a bit low). Taking that on board, Party made the decision to open with the 2 babies of the team; Jackson (aged 16) at one end, and myself Saf (aged 31) at the other... We were beset by a problem from ball 1, as the sprightly Dave Maxwell managed to tear a hammy chasing the first ball of the day... Luckily for us we had Harris Junior who sub fielded for the whole day (and did an excellent job!!!) No wickets for the openers though, so Party soon resorted to the more...um... experienced... members of the bowling attack (I will stop mentioning names, for fear of recrimination)... Mars was soon into the mode, bowling one of the openers with a fine inswinger.

This only proceeded to bring to the crease their number 3, who had a life of Tony's bowling before he was 10, but then along with the opener proceeded to belt us all over the place.. At the break they were 1/120.. During the long break (especially so due to the Cox Plate) we discussed how to get them out as everyone had given it a go... 1 suggestion was to use a bazooka... Unfortunately this was turned down (much to my dismay).

In the 2nd stanza, we managed to drop both players a couple of times each, but by this time the PAOC boys had decided to hit out... Both scored hundreds, in a 200+ run stand... very disappointing.

Near the death, one of the PAOC players decided they should go for the outright & therefore sent us in with 15 overs to face... They managed to snare 2 wickets, those of Murph and Garry, who had both hit some lovely strokes, but Tony & Lang saw us to safety... outright avoided, embarrassment not.

Lets hope for a few more players out, so some of us duds can go down a grade or 3... :)

Saf

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