As everyone arrived at the ground (Harbord Park), there wasn’t a cloud in the sky and it looked like it would be warm day. We had a good warm up with running, stretches and some fielding. Henry and Will went off to complete the toss and won, we chose to bowl. As a team we went and got changed into our playing gear and completed our warmup, with some more fielding and the bowlers bowling some balls. We had our team chat and got fired up ready to get early wickets. We started off strongly with the ball with Will C and Lucas, giving the opposition absolutely nothing. We got our first wicket in the 6th over, a caught and bowled by Lucas. After the first 10 overs we had kept them to 1/10. Will O and Dylan kept the pressure up forcing them to make mistakes. We got another 2 quick wickets which put Fairfield on the back foot. We had a chat at the drinks break and made sure that we kept the intensity up after the drinks. This included lots of chatter in the field and everyone doing the basics correctly. And sure enough that brought another run out. We brought both our spinners on and tied them down. Dylan had figures of 10 overs, 6 maidens, 9 runs and 1 wicket. While Harrison had figures of 10 overs, 5 maidens,, 12 runs and 2 wickets. We then brought on our left arm seamer, Dan, who bowled exactly how we wanted him to with, 5 overs, 2 maiden and only 3 runs. At our next drinks break we made a goal to keep them below 50 runs and bowl them out. After the built up pressure from Dan, we brought back our opening bowler Will C back into the attack, who ripped through their bottom order. Ending with figures of 6.4 overs, 3 maidens, 3 runs and 3 wickets. We finished our fielding innings by bowling out Fairfield for only 41 runs!
We had lunch and our openers Henry and Finlay padded up ready to go out and get the job done. After some throw downs to get the batter’s eye in, the openers headed out to the middle with the goal to get the win without any wickets lost! We had a strong start with Henry punishing their bowlers when they bowled a bad bowl. Our openers built a partnership up and chased down the total of 41 in less than 5 overs without losing a wicket! Henry finished with 33 off 23 not out with 5 fours and 1 six, and Finlay 5 off 7 not out. The shot of the day was from Henry who hit their spinner for six back over the his head.
Great start to the season for Manly with this comprehensive win of 10 wickets. Well done to all the boys, this win was a team effort. Thank you to the parents who umpired, scored and helped set up. Thanks to Clarke for coaching.
Written by: Finlay Sorohan