NSW YC Moore Shield
20 October, Mike Pawley Oval
MWJCA (5/203) defeated Northern Districts (10/201)
Clear Skies and a shining sun were the conditions for the U14 div 1’s second round match against Northern Districts. Manly won the toss and we sent Northern Districts into bat first on a pitch where we were unsure how much assistance it would give the bowlers.
A first wicket partnership of 53 saw a solid start for Northern Districts and they continued their momentum and got to 1-150 before Manly took our second wicket. After some great tight bowling from our boys, pressure started to build and saw Manly take 8-51 with Ben Peak bowling full and straight so the top order of ND’s found it hard to get away when they tried to up the tempo in the last 10 overs. Ben had the standout figures of an incredibly well deserved 5-39. As it showed again on Sunday, the benefit of having Beau Moran standing up to the stumps to our Fast-Medium bowlers glues the batsmen to their crease, resulting in two brilliant stumpings.
Refuelled for our first run chase of the season, our openers batted very sensibly to see off ND’s opening bowlers. An amazing 126 run partnership saw Nate Cole consistently finding the gaps particularly on the offside where he was deadly with anything slightly too full and in the end just fell short of a century with a well batted 85 off 87 balls, with 14 boundaries. Nate was well supported by Archie Wragge with a patient 44 off 106 and is always lightning between the wickets. A solid middle order continued the well-built platform with Toby Smith and Beau Moran steadying the ship after the first 2 wickets, which left it to Jacob Watts to finish the job off with 3 quick boundaries while being supported by Jai Timosevski. Overall a very complete team performance and we look forward to taking on Blacktown next week.
Stuart Turner