Match Report - ANZA1 v Marina

ANZA1 v Marina Desi Boyz at Kannag, Sunday 27 April 08

Scorecard

First time in a long time we completed a first grade match - this one was against Marina at Kallang with the sun shining bright all day. Another rare event was the winning of the toss by Kevin getting us off to a winning start for the day. With Marina sitting on top of the table it was always going to be a hard battle but to the batsmen's credit we managed to get past 160, with Kennie Kishore starring with the bat in the lower order with a cracking 54 - clearing the rope many a time even against their top pace bowler and an endless supply of handy spinners.

The top order looked good for a time before Kevin chopped on and David timed one a bit too well, with his new bat pushing out a simple catch. Scott McAllister - playing his first game for the season and being a long time out of the game - looked in good touch but with his confidence building he holed out in the deep. Renato Rainone also found some form and looked a class act and was our second top bat with 32 well deserved runs

So the total was set and with the rope being in a long way 162 was always going to be hard to protect, but the runs were still on the board so all to play for. With a run out being missed in the first over we were not off to the best start and then in the eighth over Mathew Murphy was taken for 30 - all from one over - which by the way is a record for this season (taking the trophy from Gavin).

With a change in bowling David Jacquier came on and got a key wicket resulting in a sharp slowdown of the run rate. David and Renato both bowled a tight line to stem the flow of runs and with a change in the bowling Venkat was brought on with only a handful of runs required to secure our defeat. Venkat, however, did what he always does - take wickets. With two shots spooned up to Renato and taken with ease we had the opposition thinking a little. Venkat then picked up his third wicket with a sharpish catch by Mathew (doing something good for the team) and we had something to celebrate. With only a few runs to get Kevin got the field in before they managed to get one away over the top to win the game four wickets down and plenty overs to go.

This kind of performance would have seen us beat lower placed teams as some of the batsman look in form. Better luck next time boys! (written by )

- Mathew Murphy