Unley Cricket Club

C Grade - Rounds 7 - 9

Well, we've started off 2007 in fine style.

Round 7 was the victory over Pooraka chasing down 172 at Unley High which I reported last time.

Round 8 was a one-day nail-biter at Norwood Morialta High against Hectorville:

Heccies decided to send us in on what looked like a bit of a dodging pitch and we scrambled to 128 from all but one of our 40 overs. The mainstay of our batting came from the all rounder skills of LLCoolJ Cohen who chipped in with 28 and Gino Fiore who made 25 to give the score some respectability.

The Heccies openers were a bit circumspect to say the least knocking up 41 in 20 overs and at 3 for 111 after 36 overs would still have been confident. Unfortunately their lower order batsmen had a panic attack and they proceeded to dig a hole for themselves. To cut a long story short, going into the last over they needed just 5 runs to win the game with 3 wickets in hand.

The first ball from Gino's over went for 2 and things were looking grim for us. His next ball slipped down leg side and was lucky not to be called a one-day wide by our consistent and extremely fair umpire Paul (the Pom) Barrett. The next one was pushed for a single which brought their skipper, who was on 46 onto strike with one run required for a draw and 2 for victory. In an amazing display of bowling, Frenchie clean bowled their skipper and the number 10 with consecutive deliveries.

As their number trudged out to the crease to face the hat trick ball, I thought I'd better check the scores and sure enough it was 1 to draw, 2 to win with 1 wicket in hand and 1 ball left to bowl. Needless to say I was flabbergasted by Murf's next comment "Push the field back and give them the single". After dispatching him off to square leg and vowing to myself never to listen to anymore of his inane comments ever again I settled down behind the stumps for Nugget's last delivery.

It was one of Selley's nude balls (aren't they all), but it was too good for the number 11 to even get it past the bowler. By this time the non-striker had completed three quarters of the pitch and it was a relatively simple task for Tone to remover the bails at the non-strikers end with both batsmen shaking hands down the other end.

Jubilation all round for the team hat-trick and a remarkable victory to the mighty Cs. Tony ended up with 4 for 31 having been on another hat trick earlier in their innings and he was well supported by Beachy and LLCoolJ who both took 2 for 20 odd.

As I write this Round 9 is still in progress but we have already secured the first innings points. Flinders Uni won the toss and decided to bat at Unley High and due to some excellent fielding and holding of our catches we managed to bundle them out for 85 off 35 overs with the new kid on the block J Lowe taking 3 for 31 and the ever reliable Silver Fox taking 3 for 11. The Whale took 2 for and there were 2 run outs - one by Clark Kent Choco Haigh who hit the stumps from side on to get rid of one of their gun batsman who had been looking threatening.

We had 32 overs to face and the plan was to see if we could get the runs in case of any heat or wet weather interruptions next week. We lost Murf to a dubious caught behind and Odds to a not so dubious one. With Choco gone we were struggling at 3/23 and it was up to Lawrie (the Claw) Marshall and Luke (Honky Tonks) Tonkin to rescue the ship. Tonks made a steady 22 including a humungous zack which cleared the trees and was last seen heading for the basketball stadium. Gino was clean bowled for 4 when the scores were level after 22 overs.

This brought Jay Lo to the crease fresh from his bowling stint for the fun and games portion of the proceedings. He struck the ball cleanly and crisply to all parts of the ground and with the Claw deciding to get into the action, this pair hit a ton of the last 10 overs to give us the first innings points and a lead of a hundred. Lawrie was finally out for a superb 75 and the kid's on 58no.

3 wins from 3 games is a great start to 2007 and it may even give us a chance to play finals in back to back seasons.

So it's on to next week and a crack at an outright.

Party Pete

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