Star Varsity vs Melville, A's, 10th November 2007

Another week on the tread mill that is the Hamilton Senior A 50 over competition. With Star having made a solid start to the campaign, the pressure was on the team to maintain performance and notch up another win against Melville who have been more than competitive in recent seasons.

The first major acheivement of the day was that the kit and eleven players met at the correct time at the ground. The usual amount of hand shaking was undertaken aspeople met for the first time and the captain of the day was elected (Eban Geldenhuis).

Eban proceeded to lose the toss and Melville, on the basis that the bulk of their team had not shown up at this stage, elected to bat.

The new ball was taken by Mike Rowlands and made an immediate impact in his first over having their opening batsman caught at cover attempting an outrageous drive. This was quickly followed up with Glen Nyschen performing a repeat dose of "the hip-throw" and securing a fine run-out at the bowlers end from fine leg.

Melville consolidated their position well at this point through a variety of dogged batting and the unorthodox as an unnerving number of boundaries were hit. The introduction of Ferdie Fourie into the attack brought immediate rewards, a fine first over of 5 outswingers and an inswinger which clipped the top of off-stump as the batsman shouldered arms.

Next ball brought a caught and bowled dismissal and the hat trick was on but ultimately not successful.

A good partnership developed as the Star spinners, Rohit and Glen, struggled to get into their work but Ferdie bowling straight through his 10 over finished with fine figures of 4-32 off 10.

Melville's innings was held together with a fine 63* by some bloke called Cargo but the only shipping he did was of the ball to the boundary. Rohit Bawa came back well in his second spell to clean up the Melville tail leaving 182 for the win.

35 extras were again conceded and will have to be worked on before they do some serious damage to the team. A couple of dropped catches also blighted what essentially was a fine day in the field for the team. Rowlands - 10 overs, 1 for 24. Eban, 8 overs, 0-33. Glen 10 overs 0-55, Rohit 8 overs, 2-35

Star set about the total in brisk fashion with Rick Fourie dealing to any wayward bowling but could only watch with despair as Zeb lost his leg stump leaving a ball on a wearing Melville pitch.

Next out came Cory who started his innings with a procession of fantastic straight drives as He and Rick put together a good fifty run partnership which was ended when Rick played all round a straight half volley for 25.

Richard 'Dicey' Clay came in at 4 and was intent on giving the ball a good lash, this lasted for 11 runs before looking at a bird whilst the ball was bowled (the only excuse we could think of as to why he was looking skywards at the point of ball vs stump). Andy Stirling came and went for no score as he dragged his foot whilst the keeper was standing up.

Pom was next in and a partnership of 52 was formed with Cory as Melville rolled through their limited bowling resources.

Cory was next to fall for 43, playing-on to another half volley that he arrived a little early to - a 'Phil' moment as it were.

Ferdie came and went for 7 as he unluckily fell caught behind off the back off his bat as the ball came up from hitting his pads. The remaining 60 runs were seen off by some fine hitting by Mikey Rowlands and Pom as the total was chased down after 38 overs. Pom finished on a typically dogged 44* and Rowlands on 31* as a 4 wicket win was registered.

On the whole a good day at the office with fine bowling performances and 4 scores of 25+ in the batting. The team needs to focus on the number of wides it is sending down and ensuring that we do not drop class opposition players or eventually this will cost us games. Next up is Tech and we will need to ensure we get numbers available with a number of absentees listed for the week.

The 13th Man...