Evening Bears,

Our 2016-17 'Northside' campaign got off to a perfect start with a win over the Nooks this afternoon. The official margin will read 31 runs (more on that later...)

Spooner avoided the PBCC captaincy curse and won the toss and sent Azz and Love Muscle out to kick-off the season. Although, you wouldn't have known that given the Nooks outfit was an identical design to the Bears black/blue polo. It was a relatively slow start with the major excitement of the first 10 overs being the realisation, that the Nooks dropped their pants if they dropped a catch. Safe to say, that by the end of the 40 overs, there had been a lot of pants dropped!

Love Muscle fell for 11 when they actually caught one, before Radico and Azz upped the ante and saw us through to a healthy 1/73 at drinks. Spooner issued instructions to Radico that 200 was the target, unless he was still in, where it was 250. Radico listened to that advice and started clearing the boundary with ease. As kept the score ticking along and with both batters approaching 50, DB spoke on the sidelines and next ball Azz was gone for a well-made 47. Magneto came in and kept the scoring going as the 250 target looked a chance before Radico became the first Bear to be dismissed in the 90s, falling for 94.

The innings was capped off by Kyle launching 3 consecutive sixes in a whirlwind knock of 36 to wrap up the innings at 3 for 232.

With the ball, its hard to provide insightful commentary, because a combo of beer plus a change in scorer, means that its hard to decipher what actually happened after drinks including how/where the Nooks score of 200 came from (especially given I recall them complaining about another team's scoring when we played them late last season).

Here's what did happen, there were 7 different wicket-takers, Magneto and Chook both took memorable catches and the Nooks had a 2nd grader opening who could have won the match single-handledly had we not got him out. Magneto also played a starring role with the ball following some inspired captaincy... from the vice-captain... to get him on inside the first 20 overs.

Well done to Pat for his Sunday Social Polar Bear debut and to DB for filling in at the last minute when Armface was incapacitated from too much KFC. If anyone left a chair behind, its now in Spooner's car and will go to the highest bidder.

Over to Gribbs to lead our Southside charge next week!

Spooner