After some late flusters, we ended up with 11 at Beaman for week 1, won the toss and elected to bat. The bowling was actually pretty tight early, and the boundaries reasonably deep, so runs were a little tough to come by early.
But Dan and Lach put their head down, and got us to a very solid 0/65 after 18 overs. We lost a couple of wickets before drinks, but at 2/96 off 27 overs, we were well placed to launch an assault in the latter part of the innings. Enter a bunch of park cricket spinners with not that much pace or turn, but plenty of flight, and boy, didn’t our eyes open wide. Cue stumpings and catches galore as we slid to 6/125 and then 9/142. But then Jamie joined Dan and Gus in the club of guys hitting their first ball of the season for 6, and he and Jimbo kept it very real to guide us a) beyond where we had to bowl that day and b) to a vaguely respectable 174. Probably not as many as we should have scored, but definitely something to bowl at.
Week 2 ended up being quite an entertaining day which sadly, the Gladdies ended up just slightly on the wrong side of the ledger.
Things did NOT look good early, with the Spartan openers flogging us to all parts, bringing up their team 50 in the 7th over. Early beers were well and truly on the mind, or even just coffee at the rate they were going. But Brendan finally picked up a breakthrough, and the momentum began to shift our way, quite significantly once the spin twins of Jimbo and Lach got going in tandem, such that we held them to 4/107 at drinks. They rode their luck with an awful lot of near misses, but slowly ground their way forward, until another flurry of wickets left them needing a further 30 runs with just 2 wickets in hand. The game absolutely could have gone either way, and the Gladstones put in quite a solid bowling and fielding performance, but ultimately just didn’t have enough runs to defend, with the winning runs coming off an edge over slips in the 49th over, with one wicket to spare. A great day’s play, and reason to still feel optimistic for the season. Even though we’re 1 and 2. In 4ths.
