Page 21 - West Pennant Hills Cherrybrook Cricket Club Yearbook 2014-15

C3 Grade
WPHC 130 & 6/80 lost to Beecroft 157 & 101 @ The Glade 28th & 29th March 2015
Day 1
Losing the toss we were asked to bowl first at The Glade and all in all the boys put in another terrific performance in the field with brilliant saves and some amazing catching to restrict Beecroft to 157. The fact that only 2 Beecroft batmen scored above 20 makes this even better. After being 3-24 Beecroft’s top batsman put together a rapid fire 62 to begin to take the game away from us but one of the most amazing outfield catches by Semonn Oleksyn ended his knock and turned the game back in our favour. Wickets fell regularly after that to see our opponents dismissed for 157, a total we felt confident of chasing down. Best with the ball today were Justin Edwards (4-26), Matt Rashleigh (2-16), Semmon Oleksyn (2-21) and Stanton Tam (2-32).
Late in the day we had a tricky 31 overs to face off to set ourselves up for tomorrow. However, our run chase didn’t go according to plan with the loss of early wickets putting pressure on the boys. But from 5-31 we’ve pushed forward to be 5-51 at the end of the day needing only another 107 to secure the first innings and possibly the match. We bat deep and have 2 very capable batsmen at the crease at the moment. All that we need is a couple of half decent partnerships put together to see us over the line. The boys are in good spirits and the confidence that we’ve built up within the team throughout our so far undefeated season will see us through tomorrow.
Day 2
Beginning day 2 in the precarious position of 5-51 the boys all felt quietly confident that we could get over the line and gain first innings points. The day started off according to plan with Greg Bourke (52*) & Semmon Oleksyn (37) continuing their partnership with apparent ease, whittling away at the 107 run over night deficit. All was looking good until an unfortunate run out saw the partnership broken with 58 runs still to get. Despite the best efforts of the tail we ended up falling 30 runs short on first innings.
However, with still a minimum of 44 overs left in the day we decided to roll the dice and have a crack at an unlikely victory & sent Beecroft back into bat for the 2nd innings. We knew we needed to take wickets quickly
if we were to have any chance at chasing down the deficit. It was an absolute pleasure to see the incredible determination and fight that the boys applied with the ball to give ourselves a shot at victory. Once more our bowling & fielding shone as we managed to bowl Beecroft out for a 2nd time for 101. Completing an amazing match with the ball Justin Edwards took 6-11 in the 2nd innings to finish with the sensational match figures of 10- 37, well done Justin, we couldn’t have asked for a better return from our opening bowler in the Grand Final. Other wicket takers were Stanton Tam (2-17), Nathaniel Chidgey (1-24) & Matt Rashleigh (1-27).
Despite the best efforts of our bowlers the stonewalling tactics of the Beecroft lower order managed to chew up more overs than we hoped and in the end it left us with an improbable run chase of 128 off 15 overs for victory, a rate above 8.5 an over on a slow Glade outfield and on a wicket with plenty of variable bounce. Despite this hurdle the boys once again dug deep and had a crack, of particular note was the innings of Mikey Fiedler (26*) & Nathaniel Chidgey (17*) for their valiant power hitting late in the day. In the end the run rate proved too much for us and we fell 48 runs short of the target.
Despite this one and only loss for the boys this year, everyone in the team should hold their heads high and be proud of the season of cricket we produced. Whilst we didn’t get over the line today we definitely played the highest brand of cricket for the C3 competition all season and were worthy Minor Premiers. Well done to all on a fantastic season of high quality cricket.
Front Row: Semonn Oleksyn, Aidan Russell, Mikey Fiedler, Greg Bourke, Rohit Ninan, Stanton Tam
Back Row: Harrison Miedler, Matt Rashleigh, Brett Hawkins (c), Dave Behlevanas (vc), Luke Bartlett, Nathaniel Chidgey,
Justin Edwards & Michael Gunn
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