Weekend Wrap - Agonisingly Close Losses in Top Grades

The story of the weekend for our boys was the inability to close out games as our 1sts, 2nds and 3rds all narrowly lost to Charlestown after being in winnable positions. 4ths and 5ths secured comfortable wins and the C&S boys had split results with Bear's D2s getting up against rivals Adamstown and Quinny's C5s going down against The Gardens.

1sts had a host of forced changes due to injury and unavailability, and the reshuffled batting order had an improved performance after Nathan Hudson won the toss and batted first at Kahibah Oval. We set 156 with Scott Mackenzie (38) and Jonty Durrheim (39) doing the bulk of the work. The bowling innings started terribly, with repeated dropped catches allowing Charlestown's top order to get the ascendancy, before it finally clicked and we rolled through their lower order, including 5/11 late in the play. Charlestown eventually got there 9 down in the second last over. Wickets were shared around, but Hamish Macqueen's 2/4 at the death nearly snatched victory.

2nds had a very similar story, even harder hit by changes, Brady Rumbel answered the call late in the week and scored 21, with Dean Marjoribanks (29) the top scorer as they also put 156 on the board. Charlestown batted well at the top of the order, but some good fielding brought us back in the game, before they chased the runs 8 down in the 3rd last over. James Foster had a good all round game, with 20, 2/26 and a direct hit run out.

3rds bucked the trend and bowled first after Charlestown won the toss, and found themselves chasing 188 after a massive 125* from Charlestown's opening bat. Rob Hill (2/35) and Tommy Sheehan (2/43) got amoungst the wickets. The chase was all about one man, Jack Dundas, who nearly completed the chase on his own finishing on 99* as wickets crumbled around him and we finished 20 short.

4th Grade were determined to get Steve Christie a win in his WMDCC record equaling 535th game. Batting first, they compiled 5/222, with Jason Kennewell (66), Martin Francis (44) and Uzair Khan (41*) the top scorers. The young bowling attack of Daniel Redpath (3/33), Sam Guy (2/26) and Sam Jones (3/11) then got the job done for us, with all three under 16 years old. Crunch got a wicket to celebrate the milestone as they won by 92 runs.

5ths took on University, and batted first to post 161. Luke Mannix (43) and Tim Caimakamis (35) were the top scorers. Tom Davies bowled well to pick up 3/19 and show yet more young bowling talent in the lower grades, and Taine Barker (2/25) got involved to help bowl Uni out for 136 to remain undefeated this season.

C5s batted first and put together a tidy total of 178 from their 35 overs. Troy McGrath top scored with 39*. The Gardens chased it down with 4 wickets in hand with Michael Monroe's 3/45 the best of the bowling efforts.

The D2s moved to the top of the ladder with their win over their rivals, The Adamstown Buds. We restricted the Buds to 133 off their 35 and chased it down with 5 wickets and 10 overs in hand.

Full Scorecards at:
http://mycricket.cricket.com.au/…/publ…/rv/clubresults.aspx…