Prems Miracle Victory

It's the last ball of the day and Melville are 195/9, with three runs required for victory. Joel bowls a full delivery on off stump and the ball is driven to Cummo at a deepish mid off. Surely they'll only take the single and prevent us from taking any points. But it's a brain explosion and two is called. Joel takes the throw and rips the bails off, the batsman is out by a good few metres and the man lovin begins.

The day began with Melville being at their conservative best and batting on, already having a 110 run lead. 25 runs later and Damo finishes off the innings, leaving a 140 run deficit. Another good start between Zeb and Cam Merchant sees us at 118/1 at lunch and in a good position to save the game. Unfortunately once more we lose wickets after a break with Cam being given out to a dodgy LBW three balls after lunch for 77. A dodgy run out, and another bad LBW against Guy, plus some poor batting leaves us 180/7 before the fightback began. A fighting 30 from Brenton, and 52 and 40 at more than a run a ball from Mike W and Garry respectively left Cooch and Joel to chip in with some handy runs before a declaration was made at 330.

197 in 29 overs was Melvilles target, and at 148/1 off about 16 overs with Mike Dodunski and Keir Bettley both past 50, things were not looking good. However when Mike W got one to roll along the pitch to dismiss Dodo, the wickets started falling. A packed offside field and some brilliant line and lenth bowling from Brenton (3/14) and Joel (2/65) saw Melville panick and collapse when the runs couldn't be scored.

A famous Star win and valuable outright points to move us back into the hunt for the final, with us facing fierce old rivals Old Boys in a must win game next weekend.

Updated points table
Boys High 39
Melville 24
Old Boys 20
Star 14
Suburbs 13
Tech 11