Prem's vs Melville

Regular skipper Braces was unavailable today so Ben stepped up and led Star for the first time. He wanted to bowl first and got his wish. Jaiden was playing his debut and was handed the new ball for the second over of the day. Unfortunately he couldn't seem to hit his areas and after 2 overs was 0-20. Cam came on and looked good to start with but also bowled the odd 4 ball which the Melville openers were just waiting for. Gaz bowled pretty well to start with getting some good swing but Melville were scoring at a quick rate and their openers were out at 2 for 60 in the 12th over.

Melville then batted superbly well and had a 3rd wicket partnership of 194 between Dodunski and Bettley. Bettley was bowled by Cam for 89 and Dodunski was eventually stumped off Aaron for 117. I think by this stage he was completely haddit and the damage had certainly been done. Some late wickets brought some respectability back to the scoreline but they were able to declare at 292/5.

The bowling wasn't really up to scratch all day. Too many 4 balls and not enough consistency combined with some good batting had us chasing a lot of leather.

Wickets: Aaron 2, Gaz 2 and Cooch 1

So to the batting, and we again lost early wickets to be 2 for 30 odd at tea. The pitch was an absolute road and their bowlers were nothing to write home about. The only way we were going to get out is if we got ourselves out with rash shots, or lost concentration.

After tea that's exactly what happened. Zeb batted well and made 32 before missing a straight one, but other than that the top order again failed and we were 100/8 without really firing a shot. Some late order hitting from myself with 47 along with Cam 23 and Jaiden 15 n.o got us to 184. We were short of the follow on mark of 193 so we had to bat again for 5 minutes. Myself and Rowly negotiated the 2 overs to be on 10/0, still 98 away from making them bat again.

Hopefully next week we can get our batting house in order and get to around 300 in 70 odd overs, and give ourselves a chance of winning outright. Judging by this performance, it'll take a lot of hard work.