Aurora,
Sunday wasn’t the start to the season we were looking
for!!!! C-grade started poorly before we were even at the ground with Armface a
late withdrawal. A last minute search failed to secure a player, so the Bears
prepared to go into battle with 10 players. Make that 9, Spooner had erred in
counting Pabs in his count of players.
With the grass almost non-existent at Bonython and only 9
players, it was shaping as a long afternoon in the field, even more so when
Spooner lost the toss and we were fielding first. The highlights were few and
far between for the Bears as Chief and Wog Boy led the charge for Just 4 Beers.
GT (or is that D/T) thought he’d brought up his 50th wicket with a
couple of confident LBW appeals, but without DRS, he went wicketless. Even the
mysterious appearance of “Howie” on the bowlers scorecard couldn’t help the
Bears. Although, I must say Howie looked strikingly like Josh…
Just 4 Beers went to drinks at 0/135 and despite Radic
claiming a wicket in the 25th over, Just 4 Beers only accelerated. Chief
finally edged one off Spooner in the 39th over, but the damage was
well and truly done and Just 4 Beers had piled on 2/322 – no bowler managing to
get under 7 runs per over in their spell.
It was a positive start for the Bears with bat as Mike and
Radic got things going with Just 4 Beers quickly realising how quick the
outfield was and that 322 wasn’t all that safe. Radic fell for 9, before Rocket
made a claim for Armface’s #3 position with a brisk 25. GT looked a million
dollars before picking out the fielder on the boundary and departed for 3. Mike
took us to drinks in style with 4 consecutive boundaries (I swear one cleared
the markers easily, but they claimed it was a 4) to bring up his 50 and take us
to 3/125 at drinks.
Mike and Rankin continued to keep the scoreboard ticking
over after drinks, before Mike fell for a well compiled 75. Gribbs offered what
seemed like 5 chances in his short and sweet stay of 11. Before Spooner came in
and took his season tally to five times that of GT’s with a quick fire 15.
Shortly after Spooner’s dismissal, a Bear cleared the boundary which drew an
immediate response of ‘shot Rankin’ from Gribbs and Spooner, only to look up
and see that it was Josh who had launched. He fell shortly after and Rankin was
the last Bear dismissed for a solid 35.
We posted a respectable 8/213 off 32 and a bit overs,
unfortunately, playing 2 Bears short cost us a number of runs in the field and
also hurt our batting in the end….
Thanks to Gribbs for putting his family offside and playing
cricket rather than attending the aftermath of a christening and also for
reluctantly taking the BBQ and esky home, to Sha’neo for grabbing snags at the
last minute and to the Terrell family to coming to watch GT bat (although he
failed to deliver)
Spooner