NSW YC Gee Shield
27 October 2024, Harbord Park
It was a warm Sunday in the middle of spring with Manly having the home ground advantage at our fortress Harbord Park. Our stand in skipper JT lost the toss and SEJCA sent us into the field.
SEJCA’s decision to bat seemed to be the wrong one when they fell to 3 for 15 after 9 overs. Jack Egerton got 2 of the early wickets, one of which was a Johnny Bairstow type stumping by Josh Hill. Another one was a caught behind by Josh Hill and one wicket went to Riley Stradling after a diving forward screamer catch from JT at cover.
Manly continued to bowl well but SEJCA’s 4th and 5th batters put on a quick 70 run partnership with Aaron Potash scoring 56 off 50 balls with some classy attacking shots.
At drinks the Manly coaches emphasised the need for us to remain calm and to bowl on off stump and the wickets will come. The message was heard and four balls after drinks, Will Mathlin caught the edge of Aaron’s bat and the ball flew to Ryan Rosenkowitz at gully. SEJCA put together another partnership of 30 but Zac Foley bowled an epic second spell taking 4 wickets, two of which were caught behind by Josh Hill, one was plumb LBW and the other caught by Leo Barnett. Zac who ended up with 4 for 21 off 8 overs was well supported by a tight second spell by Jack Egerton who picked up his third wicket to finish with figures of 3 for 14 off 8 overs.
Cooper Gabriel who was filling in from Div 2, leg spin was almost impossible to get away. He conceded only 3 runs off 2 overs at the death which is brilliant. Cooper almost got a wicket but was deemed a bump ball by the umpires but luckily we still got the wicket with a runout from Zac and Josh.
SEJCA crumbled under the pressure applied by Manly, falling from 132/5 to all out for 139. After a solid bowling and fielding performance from Manly, we now needed to switch our focus to batting.
Happy with the way the bowling innings ended, we enjoyed some lunch with a variety of dishes from around the world/northern beaches.
Chasing 140 Manly started the innings well with an opening partnership of 62 between Riley Stradling and Jacob Burmeister. Things were going well for Manly until South Eastern brought on Alistair Tudehope their leg spinner, who picked up the wickets of Riley Stradling and Justin Turner with 2 brilliant balls. Manly were then in a bit of trouble at 98-3 after Jacob Burmeister had departed for a good innings of 42. South Eastern had the chance to put Manly under some pressure but a brilliant partnership of 39 between Ryan Rosenkowitz (36) and Fred Tyson (15*) managed to get Manly within 3 of the South Eastern total. Ryan departed for a well-made 36 to a good catch. Fred then won Manly the game with a great shot straight back past the bowler for 2 runs and we won with 5 overs to go with 6 wickets in hand.
A tough game, but a lot of lessons learnt and a good chase.
Report by Josh Hill and Riley Stradling
Josh Hill, 5 dismissals as Wicket Keeper
Zac Foley (4/21 off 8 overs)
Jack Egerton (3/14 off 8 overs)