Round 2

October 22nd

Metalfold Industries Bloomfield Pelicans vs Freyberg Stallions

Looking for a better result than the week before, Metalfold Industries Bloomfield were amped to get back onto the field. Coming up against the new Freyberg team meant there were a few unknowns leading into this game. Taking the advice from the batsmen, Trout (Corey Bary) won the toss for the second week in a row and put the boys in to bat.

Sticking with the tried and true, Jason and Chris opened the batting. Jason got off to flyer in his expected style of getting off the mark with a boundary, and from there they kept flowing. Chris did well keeping Jason on strike to continue with his power hitting. Jason reached his 50 off not many balls and soon departed for 76, including 9 fours and 4 sixes.

Jason Bary scored 76 from 45 deliverys.

Trout arrived at the crease to see Chris square up and get out LBW shortly after. The other batsmen came and went along with Trout, leaving Sukh and Benjamin to clean up the mess. They spent some time at the crease with Sukh batting through to 28 before hitting one high in the air to mid-wicket. Unfortunately, it wasn’t “too high” and he was out caught. Ben then tried picking up the run rate but was bowled in the 38th over. Our innings finishing on what should be an easily defendable 207.

Garys face after yet another poor showing with the bat.

Coming into Freyberg's batting innings we were sure these guys were going to be able to bat, rumour has it they love a good game of T10. So, the only way to get them off to a slow start was to put the fierce combination of Ben and Gaz in to keep them honest, and honest they were kept. Second ball in and Ben strikes early, finding the outside edge of Jitto Thomas’ bat, that was cleanly taken by Glennis at gully. A catch that Glennis would say he had to dive for but it was just a simple fall to his left.

Celebrations after Glennis' catch.

Unfortunately for us though, that bought Jithu to the crease. He and opener Jibin set about their work and got themselves in, creating a decent partnership before Jason steamed in and knocked Jibins leg stump out of the ground for 13. Much like our innings, batsmen came and went, contributing to the score board in drips and drabs including Jithu making it to 50 before Eric Foreman (Chris) had him out caught with his lethal “Spin” bowling. Nijo and Shebeer did the damage and when they were still at the crease in the 30th, we knew we were in dangerous territory. Knowing that these guys love their 10 over format of cricket, it was going to be a battle to take their wicket. Boundaries started flowing and they got through to the target in the 37th over 6 down. 29 for Nijo and a. admirable 53 for Shebeer.

After a week of just managing to scrape together a team due to players being out for the long weekend, the only thing Trout has managed to win so far is the toss. Fingers crossed for a full team next week when we face up to Dannevirke Yellow.

MVP- Jason 3, Sukh 2, Eric Forman 1.

Scorecard

Accelerate Automotive Bloomfield Premier 4 VS United.

After a dominant round 1 performance against Boys High 4th XI, next on the agenda for the high flying Accelerate Automotive Bloomfield P4 team was United Men Premier 4. This week saw Josh Chard being called in at the last minute, making his debut for Bloomfield.

Captain Dawson won the toss and decided that we would have a bowl. He then proclaimed that Joe would be opening the bowling. With no Joe on the team sheet, everyone was confused until the ball was eventually given to George. Some good tight bowling from the opening duo of George/Joe and Bevan to start saw not too many runs scored and a steady fall of wickets with Bevan finishing up with 3 wickets for 19.

After complaining at practice, the previous night that he wouldn’t be able to bowl, Captain Dawson then proceeded to bring himself on. Nothing of note was produced from this very tight spell and the author of this write up possibly feel asleep in the slips during these overs. (Perhaps if the slip wasn't asleep something a little more eventfull could have taken place?)

The star of the bowling was Nathan Chard and his luscious flowing hair that featured heavily in his action movie stylised, dash n' dive, caught and bowled to remove James Wakelin for hard fought 16 off 29 balls. He finished his 8 overs with 4 wickets for 44. He would later receive a fine for creating hair envy amongst the less hair gifted members of the team.

On debut, Josh came on for a bowl with his right arm slow-medium around the wicket and being a bit of an unknown caused a lot of issues for the batters, keeper and slip (when he was awake) and sadly had a couple of hard catches behind the stumps go to ground. After 4 overs, he suddenly realised he bowls over the wicket, not around and switched to that and finished out his spell.

Zach also had bowl, was very hard to put away. He had a dropped catch in the slips because Steeeeevee cannot jump high and only managed to get his fingertips to the ball. He later picked up the LBW of Dan Mackay for 8.

After all that, United finished on 143 for 9 off their 40 leaving 144 for the win.

The only photo of our game thanks to Glennis.

With the absence of Rowen, Greg was promoted up the order to open with George. They proceeded to get us off to a quick start with Greg showing an awesome display of streaky cut shots and George using brute force to smash the new ball attack. Eventually Greg made the decision to attempt a tennis style over head shot to a very high bouncer that would have been a wide and popped it up for an easy catch. He then proceeded to blame a member of the other Bloomfield team for this shot, for this he received a fine.

Nathan Chard coming in at 3 provided some stability while a couple wickets fell around him, seeing George get stumped off a fast bowler and Dan pop up an easy catch. Zach came to the crease to join him, and after some excellent cricket shots by Zach, just over 20 runs was required going into drinks.

After drinks the teams run chase derailed with Zach being bowled, Steeeeevee taking a wild swing across the line and sending the ball straight up for the only duck off the innings, Campbell having his stumps decimated for 1 and Nathan departing for a hard earned 10 off 40 deliveries. This left just over 20 runs to win the game and we were now 8 down. The next 12 overs were a very tense time with Matthew Dowman and Josh Chard putting on a defensive masterpiece that brought us to within 2 runs of the win. 2 quick wicketts left the team 9 down and the fate of the game in the hands of Captain Dawson and Bevan. Bevan got a quick single to leave scores tied and Captain Dawson used every bit of his vast experience to leave a wide one to finish the game, Bloomfield winning by 1 wicket.

MVP- Zach 3, Josh 2, Nathan 1.

Scorecard

Glennis didn't take any photos of our game. Terrible.