Page 21 - West Pennant Hills Cherrybrook Cricket Club

This batsman came out all guns blazing as we knew he had done to other Opposition teams during the season, but Paul (still runs like Pamela Anderson) Vink almost had his man in the first over but the catch fell short. There were attacking, but unimpressive shots played to take the score to 20 in the 4th over. Hmmm, maybe this plan wasn’t working, but then Buzz managed to grab the breakthrough (not the desired batsman, but an early set-back for the opposition none the less) to have the score at 1/20.
The introduction of our speed ace Josh (I got a 7 for) Elliott bled a few runs in his first over, but with an incredibly accurate and challenging spell from the other end from Pamela Vink, Josh then started to hit his straps, ramp up the speed and aggression and destroyed their number three batsman’s stumps with a scorching yorker. 2/38.
Vink Snr toiled away unrewarded but produced some of the most unplayable deliveries of the season without the luck to grab a scalp. Enter Xander ‘I’ve got a new car wanna see it?’ Vink who ambled in first ball and promptly dismissed their best batsman that we were targeting to have them 3/49.
From there on in we really piled on the pressure, Josh was just too quick for the remaining batsmen and started to have them ducking and diving and hot stepping around the crease just to lay bat on ball, he grabbed the next pole - possibly the most satisfying wicket of the day. A young bowler in the opposition had no hesitation to continually give our batsmen ‘verbals’ throughout his bowling stint, so he was greeted to the crease with a searing bouncer that laid him flat on his back, missed the next fire bolt from Josh and then tamely spooned one to mid wicket, seemingly happy to be back in the pavillion -4/50.
Xander was hitting a great line and clean bowled their Captain - 5/50. A few more streaky runs eked out before Josh struck again 6/58. We’re on a roll here folks and in great C2 Blue spirit, we knew we’d evened up the match. Now to press hard to close this out. Josh tore in again and the batsman skied a loose shot, The Quan took flight from Mid off and covered what will undoubtably be 30 metres in stories told at the Club in years to come, but somehow covered a heap of ground and managed to cleanly snare a fantastic catch - 7/58.
We’re still in this for a first innings win! The next partnership chanced their arm and managed to trip over the line past our score, but had by this stage entered the ‘belief’ stage of emotions. Josh cleaned up another to grab his ‘Michelle’- 8/61.
This was a magnificent spell of fast bowling. 11 overs straight of fast, attacking, aggressive and clever bowling that yielded the stunning figures of 11-3-5-20. Awesome stuff to drag us back into the match.
It was then up to Bishy (apparently the Opposition have read our match reports, because they were sledging Bishy as being the ‘lesser’ Bish?! - Thanks Stuey). He grabbed the next wicket 9/69. Buzz ended the innings next over to have them all out 69.
This bowling effort was continually backed up by some super efforts in the field with great catches by Peter Lees, Quan, Harri, Connor, Tarun and Riley
Wickets went to: Josh 5, Xander and Buzz 2 each, and 1 for the ‘still playing cricket this weekend’ Bish. Game on Folks!
With 7 overs to survive, we unfortunately lost a wicket, but we are pretty much even at the start of play tomorrow, and with a positive plan agreed to tonight at the Club, we’ll head out tomorrow as definitely a team with everything to play for and the talent and belief that we have so much time left in the game that we can force a victory!
Thanks for all the supporters who came, cheered, then consoled, and then cheered again! If you’re free tomorrow, we’d love your support on what should be a thrilling game of cricket.
Nothing to lose from here - everything to gain!
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