Anza Fourths are in winning mode...

The Anza 5th Grade took a trip to Fernvale to take on ITT Alumni early in the morning. After heavy overnight rainfull the ground was pretty much saturated and we were pretty luck to play. Unfortunately Anza only had 10 men and among them a few new faces with varying degrees of rustiness.

Spainy ambled out to the middle to toss and promptly lost, maintaining a 100% record in that area this year. Impressive stuff. So predictably we were put in to bat on a sopping wet pitch and a swamp like out field.
The top three batsman came and went for under par scores, as extras raced into the top scorer role. It was looking a little ominous and there were concern's that we might get rolled out for an indefensible total. However our middle order stuck around and got us out of a spot of bother.

Phil McNicholas played very sensibly for his 33 picking up the ones and twos well as boundaries were very difficult to come by unless you the aerial route. He formed a couple of good partnerships with Jodi Watcher 19 and Koushik Muthury 15. This gave the score a degree of respectability as it reached three figures.

Phil did had two batsman come and go with not much added to the score, in the end joined by newly promoted number 10 Peter Clarke. Just as this final partnership was starting to blossom Phil decided that was enough batting for the day and missed a straight one.

It would be fair to say that all the batsmen got themselves out rather than being bowled out. One person who may be exempt from this is Mark Cordiner who got a bit of a harsh LBW decision. Seeing as he hit it and it didn't touch his pads he may have some grounds for feeling aggrieved.

So all out for 139 off about 24 overs, we once again committed the cardinal sin of not batting the over's out. One big mention should go to our top scorer on the day, Extra's made a marvellous effort topping the runs charts with 41. Extras is having a great year for Anza 5th's currently topping the runs scored table and average, keep it going!

After a few sandwich's and samosa's we entered the quagmire for our turn in the field. Things started very well with James Dickinson and new guy Laurence Heavey opening up very nicely and decimating there top order with 3 wickets in the first 6 over's for not a lot of runs. This included a passage of proper cricket, a good ball from James just outside of got a little bounce found the edge and was safely snaffled by Koushik behind the stumps.

After are opening spell the tight bowling continued with Phil having a good all round day with a controlled spell and a wicket. However the screw's were really turned once the spin twins came on and bowled good lines on off stump. Peter Clarke used all his experience to pick up an excellent 4 wickets in his marathon 6 over spell. This including a fine juggling caught and bowled which was eventually caught on the 13th attempt somewhere near the cover boundary. He was well backed up by the skipper the other end who bagged a couple for himself.

IIT were bowled out for under a ton, which was a very good bowling effort which was backed up by a solid effort in the field where nearly all the chances were taken.

So the 5th's march towards the summit of the league with a 100% league record, as long as you discount last week. Things bode well for the next game against the British Club as they were beaten by IIT. Until next time chaps. . .

By Tom Woods