U14 NSW Youth Championship Moore Shield, Grand Final, Weldon Oval, 10 December 2023
North Shore 8-212 (Corcoran 3/43, Rulli 2/13, Rosenkowitz 1/28, Graham 1/33) defeated MWJCA 201 (Keam 57, McCombe 32, Jayaram 23, Horstead 22) by wickets.
Manly’s 14/1 Youth Championship team came into the Grand Final undefeated but unfortunately went down to North Shore in fighting style. A great season full of highs finishing on a low.
It was a misty and wet day. As the Manly team arrived the covers were pulled off to reveal a hard and grassy wicket. After Manly lost the toss North Shore’s captain sent us into the field. We soon found this to be a challenge with a wet ball due to the wet and skiddy outfield.
Tight new ball bowling from the manly opening bowlers Louis Corcoran and Will Graham saw North Shore get off to slow start. Shutting down runs early forced the batters to play a silly stroke with Caden Rosenkowitz getting the first wicket in the 14th over. After drinks the boys came back strong again with Rocco Rulli striking in the 17th over (Rocco ended the pic of our bowlers). Although wickets were hard to come by with two North Shore batters putting on a 100 plus run stand before Will broke through with a wicket. A final push from Manly with some tight bowling from bowling restricted North Shore getting beyond their total of 212. Although Manly’s fielding was not the best, letting through a number of balls, this was only a par score on Weldon Oval and we knew this was a score we could chase down.
The Manly batting innings started with openers Rohit Jayaram and Harvey Matheson making a confident start before Harvey fell in the 6th over for 13. Angus Pike departed soon after in the 8th over. One over later Rohit Jayaram departed to a ball that just about rolled for a solid 23. With manly 3-39 Darcy Horstead and Noah Keam were both yet to score and began the innings again. They started batting well together putting on a 40 run stand before Darcy departed for 22. Noah batted on with a lone hand of 57 with wickets falling around him. Mitch McCombe then came in to make a solid quick fire 32, scoring just over a run a ball. But we kept losing wickets with partnerships of 29, 21 and 27. Louis and Murray Moran made one final push with more than 30 still required. Murry was the last wicket to fall although he almost got us the win. Manly was always ahead of the run rate it was just the fall of wickets regularly that had the manly team undone. We fell just 11 runs short of the perfect season.
We still celebrated the season with burgers and Chicken Tikka at the Clubhouse. Massive thanks to Chris Melville and the Warringah Cricket Club.
Report by Darcy Horstead
