Brunswick Cricket Club's season is underway for both seniors and juniors. After all matches were abandoned last week, it was great to start the senior season with all teams being undefeated - 7 wins and 2 no-results. Here are the match reports. Go Wicks!
Women’s Team v Moonee Valley at Home
The Brunswick Women's Team kick started their Geoff Law Shield campaign with a win on Sunday against Moonee Valley, at Allard Park. The team welcomed debutant player, Rhiannon Jones, and new coaches Alex Halls and Henry Robertson. Rosie Rodger will be looking to emulate the likes of Alyssa Healy and Adam Gilchrist as she takes on the role of wicket-keeper captain.
The first win of the day was the toss and Brunswick elected to bowl. Allegra Kline was a standout with the ball taking 2/14 in her 4 overs. Special mention to Indi Rodger for conceding just 2 runs and to Emily White for her wicket. Poppy Dohrman was excellent in the field and was involved in 2 of the team's 3 run outs. In the end, Brunswick restricted the visitors to 6/90.
Allegra Kline and Rosie Rodger opened the batting, and both performed well to see out their 5 overs undefeated on 13 and 16 respectively. Poppy Dohrman top-scored, hitting 3 boundaries on her way to 22 not out.
Brunswick finished the day on 3-103, cruising to a comfortable win. A great way to start the season.
Firsts v Melton Away
We welcomed 3 new players to the firsts, Ben Rowles (SOS), Daniel Rawson (Rowdy) & Dan Houghton. Hilly won the toss & elected to send Melton into bat on a wicket that was maybe a little tacky. Dan H took the/his first wicket with the score on 37 then Lou Cameron dismissed the dangerous MacRae for 22 – 2/61. A solid partnership followed before Jack Moss struck with a C&B 3/138. Wickets fell at regular enough intervals to see Melton finish a very respectable 8/205. Jack Moss did an exceptional job & finished with 1/26 off 9, Doz 1/36, Lou 2/49, Dan H 1/36, David Bon 1/46 & (B) Mossy 1/4, all provided good support.
Hilly & SOS started well before SOS was out for 14 @ 1/56. Hilly continued in an attacking manner with Marcus next to fall for 8. Rowdy joined Hilly & took us to the drinks break @ 2/111, with the game well & truly in our control. Hilly fell straight after drinks for a dominant 63 off 67. (B) Mossy (8) & Lewis (11), were able to contribute in handy partnerships with Rowdy & when David Bon joined Rowdy @ 5/148 the game was in the balance. Rowdy & Bon were controlled & with some excellent running & an aggressive mindset were able to get control back our way & we were able to overtake Melton in the 43rd over. Exceptional & intelligent late order batting. Rowdy 56no & David Bon 25no, put on 58 to get us home.
Well done to all. A win is always a good away to start the season. We will take much from this game as we go to work this week on areas we have identified that we can improve on.
Seconds v Melton Away
Playing Melton on Sunday we were in the field first on what was a pretty good batting deck. We were a little slow to get into stride bowling on the fullish side. JMac got the initial breakthrough, well caught by Dougie @ slip 1/33. Partnerships followed @ 3/140 we were looking at chasing an imposing score, however stepping up to the plate was Mitch Horrocks who proceeded to dismantle the mid/late order taking 6/25 off 6 overs, 4 of which were bowled.
We were able to restrict Melton to 185, which we considered was a gettable score. Jmac 2/28, John M 1/21 & Rahul 1/31 were the other wicket takers.
Unfortunately rain intervened & that was the end of play with the match drawn – a good hit out for our bowlers & 40 overs in the legs will provide a strong base to move on to Preston next week.
Thirds v Melton at Home
Vansh batted really well. Mature innings, knocked singles around once the field was back. He seems to have taken a step in up maturity and carried our innings. Without his contribution we may have lost.
Most other batters got a start but didn’t have the patience to get used to the pitch and build an innings. Aiden Hardcastle, Tom Nixon, Elliot Jaffe & myself all caught in the deep through the middle overs, when we would have been better placed in working the ball to get to a score of 200.
Aiden & Tom, both new players to the club will be valuable contributors. Aiden hits it hard and fields well & Tom kept very tidily, took all his catches but unfortunately broke his finger so will have some time out.
We took early wickets to put them under pressure & effectively controlled the game early in their innings.
Hamish Maclaren was a little wayward at times, however his pace was a little hard to handle. Once he got into his spell he found some good rhythm. Potter serviceable and reliable as always.
Giblett is a very reliable spinner and did his usual job & if he gets an opportunity at a higher level will acquit himself well. Elliot bowled well as always but unfortunately is unavailable for a couple of games and could also push to the next level. Declan Smith did a good job, came under pressure in one over but came back with a tidy over and then a wicket. Rupptaz looked good. Found seam movement and bowled a nice length, with good pace.
A solid win to get our season underway.
Fourths v Melton at Home
One day game for Round 1 against the newly promoted Melton, we won the toss and elected to bowl – with heavy rain forecast to arrive after 4.30 pm.
Tom Burn (1-15 from 8) and Ed Sivak are two of the quicker bowlers you’d encounter in 4th eleven, and that set the trend with 2 early wickets and about 20 plays and misses. Akshay Kharbarwal bowled first change and bowled very accurate and pacy leg breaks, hitting the stumps twice with his faster ball finishing with 2-18 from 8. There was a forty run partnership, but Melton never threatened a big score, limping to 116. New additions to Brunswick, Ben Loughnane (1-15) and Luca Tansley (1-0) took their first wickets for the club along with Ed Sivak who finsihed with 4-22 from his 8 overs.
Chasing 116 with the clouds looming, Akshay and Tim Lancaster got us off to a positive start, 27 from 5 overs before Akshay fell for 21 attempting his 3rd boundary of the over to a brilliant catch at forward point. Another new player, Queenslander Luke Stutter, came to the crease after advice to ‘have a look early’ and proceeded with, First ball: flick over square leg for 6. Second ball: pull shot over mid-on for 4. Third ball: pull shot for 6 hitting the top of the freeway wall. Melton heads dropped as they looked for a way out through slowing it down to delay for the impending rain.
Melton fought back somewhat when Lanco was adjudicated LWB by Umpire Robertson (11), then young gun debutant Ruben Powell was politely welcomed to Subbies cricket LWB by Umpire Robertson (2). Strutter put his head down a little after his initial flurry, although did put a huge one into the freeway’s city bound traffic (no multi-car pile-up resulted), before getting out for a nice 36. New player Giri Rathakrishnan (25 not out) looks a handy player and steadied the ship to get us past the 116 score in the 18th over before the heavans opened.
Was good to have a look at so many talented new players. A solid start, we should go well this year.
Saturday B v Williamstown Colts at Home
The Saturday Bs kicked off the season with a strong win against a young Williamstown Colts team. With the Colts' ground unavailable, the game was moved to McDonald Reserve for a T20. There was a soft patch on a good length at the Bell St end, so the umpires decided to play from one end (as permitted by MCA rules).
After being sent in, Sid (22) and Chopper (25) got us off to a quick start before both played one aggressive shot too many, leaving us 2/58 off 7. Gareth (11), Luka (10), Farzad (13) all contributed through the middle, before Baljeet (24) and Westy (21no) took 40 from the last 4 overs to get us to 6/153. The score was boosted by 6 byes scored from 2 free hits (after no balls) where the batters were bowled and the ball deflected off the stumps for handy runs.
Harsh and Akhil bowled well at the start, restricting the Colts to just 1/13 after the first 6 overs with 'powerplay' field restrictions. Their #3 batted well for 44 until he was castled by Bryce. Aiden fought back well from an expensive 2nd over to claim 4/36, including 2 neat stumpings by Sid. Farzad, Harsh and Baljeet closed out the innings with the Colts 30 runs short.
It was fantastic to get out on the field and for everyone in the team to contribute to the win. Big thanks go to Akhil and Meady for getting the covers down on Wednesday. Without that, we would not have been able to play.
Saturday D v Sacred Heart at Home
Sacred Heart won the toss and sent us in to bat in a shortened T20 game at McDonald Reserve.
After losing an early wicket, Adam Brennan (70) and Mark Anthony Legg
(46) put on a 110 run partnership to set up a solid first innings score of 3/149(cc).
We started strong with the ball keeping Sacred Heart to 5/52 at the 10 over mark with Obi Hassan (3/31) and Zaine Welsh (2/21) doing the damage. A 6th wicket partnership of 69 runs, 36 wides and a couple of dropped catches kept Sacred Heart in the game, but a run-out in the 2nd last over ended a late surge from one of their batsmen, with Sacred Heart finishing on 6/133(cc) resulting in a 16 run victory for the Wicks.
Sunday D v Youlden Parkville at Home
We won the toss and chose to bat. A super 69 (62) from Adam Brennan, partnered beautifully by Zach Chamberlain 29* (50), with great cameos from Aakash Chaudhary 14 (7) and Osgar Bryant 2* (1) at the death, took us to 2/129 (20).
All of our bowlers performed well. Evan Nolte 0/17 (4) and Lachlan Anderson 0/11 (4) set the scene at the start with tight and economical bowling. Followed well by Shaik Hemad Faisal 2/20 (4) and Archie Liddell 2/36 (4) (Archie got tonked in his 4th over (24) as YP really needed to go). Then superb spin bowling at the death by Aakash Chaudhary 0/14 (2) and Manuda Koku Hennedige 1/10 (2).
Our fielding was very tight. Osgar Bryant did some nice work behind the stumps (with a catch, a stumping, and a runout). Dean Anderson took a lovely catch at short cover. Shaik Hemad Faisal and Manuda Koku Hennedige combined beautifully in a runout.
We had a great win over Youlden Parkville 7/110 (20).
Sunday B
Match abandoned