Glenmore Cricket Club News story


Match Report: 1st XI vs Cavaliers III, June 15th

17 Jun 2013

After a thorough dousing the night before and an early morning pitch inspection by the skipper all were pleasantly surprised to see that the condition of the Inland Small ground was relatively dry.

Cavs narrowly made it on time for the toss (1 minute to spare). Bray who has been in good form with the coin in the last few games called correctly and had no hesitation in batting first.

With several players playing the rotation game Storey was elevated to open with Bray and together they saw out the first 10 overs for 40 runs and never looked to be in trouble apart from a full blooded drive from Storey that was too hot for Nayan to hold onto.

It looked like a large partnership could be looming until Nomi slipped in an in swinger and removed Bray’s stumps. 1/44, the foundation was there and Glenmore were hoping that today would be a day of partnerships and concentration.

Sherjan came to the crease and Storey continued to find form flicking boundaries to leg and smashing drives through cover and keeping out anything threatening that the Cavs bowlers could come up with. They backed up the opening stand with another handy partnership of 29 before Sherj was trapped in front by Umar as is all too often a fairly bowler friendly raising of the LBW finger by the umpire.

Joubert looking to spend some time in the middle joined Storey and negotiated a couple of overs before the darkening skies turned into a full on storm. Huddled in cars both teams waited out the pummeling of hail and heavy rain. Deciding to take lunch early meant that the 30 mins lost could be made up at the end of the day. Resuming on a still slightly soggy Inland Small pitch Storey and Joubert continued to play smart cricket notching up another 40+ partnership of 45 runs before Joubert was bowled by the spin of Jimmy.

The inform Jenkinson fairly bounced out to the crease but apparently had one eye on the still swirling storms and patchy rain as he played over the top of the spinner to be cleaned up for an uncharacteristic duck.

At this stage Glenmore was 4 for 123 and some good partnerships were needed to bat out 50 and get a +200 score. Reinhardt was just the man for the job. Storey and Reinhardt put on 22 before Storey's fluent innings came to an end thanks to the vagaries of the Inland Small pitch. A grenade of a delivery from Sirus exploded out of nowhere to catch the top edge of the shoulder and balloon to the slips. A delight to watch Alex’s innings of 79 was again an underlining of his talent in the now all-round role for Glenmore as Keeper/Batsman.

5/145 with a lot of work still to do Gajendra joined Reinhardt and together they put on the third 40 run partnership of the innings. Reinhardt eventually fell to another LBW which could have gone either way for a well-made 25. Parr strode to the crease eager to stamp some authority with some lusty hitting. He did manage one flat smashed 6 off the bowling of Jay before the slow spin of Nayan brought the false stroke and saw Parr heading back to the folding chair gallery for 8. Gajendra in the meantime was putting together another of his now becoming famous rear guard innings.

7/199 and 5 overs to go. Bijju and Bobby negotiated the remaining time putting on 18 runs and getting Glenmore to a very good total of 217 in the wet murky skied conditions.
A quick change and the Glenmore huddle was joined by a nest of mozzies so thick that the players could barely see across the circle to see who was on the other side. A quick chirp and man bonding session later and Glenmore were out and eager to continue its hold over the Cavaliers club.
Today was Nathans day in the sun (and er…rain, hail, wind, cloud, drizzle and  gloom….)

His first victim was Sirus who was fresh off 40 runs in Elite last week. Parr produced a ripper of an out swinger that just moved enough to take the edge with Storey completing the dismissal. Khawaja the big left hander was threatening with a 6 and a 4 from Bobby who was not seeing a lot of his usual movement. Bobby had his revenge but this time as the catcher running around from Fine Leg to hold on and give Parr his second wicket as Khawaja skied an attempted flick to leg.

2/24 and Glenmore needed to press the advantage. Jay who was looking good with a couple of boundaries got an edge from a lifting Parr delivery outside off that was snatched on the second attempt by Bray at first slip as he negotiated taking the catch and avoiding the diving obstacle of Storey, gone for 16. Parr was really into the groove now and at 3/34 Cavs were in trouble. Parr continued to pile on the pressure picking up Phanni for 7 and then completing his 5 for trapping Sanjay in front for a globe.
At 5/63 Cavs were well behind the DL rate; however a massive storm front was threatening to potentially skittle Glenmore’s opportunity for a win. The decision was made by the skipper to bring on some slower bowlers to try and get the 20 overs needed for a game in the bank. Memon’s couple of overs was put on hold as the ball was thrown to Richy and Sherjan.

This proved costly for Glenmore as Nayan and Jimmy took to the off-spin of Richy who couldn’t quite get his length right smashing 28 from his three overs. At the other end the usually frugal Sherjan was also leaking runs however in his third over Jimmy feathered a looping edge to Storey to end the onslaught.
Now that 20 overs were safely negotiated it was time to get Parr back into proceedings. 6/97 and Cavs were still in the hunt and in typical fashion never stopped trying to smash everything out of the park regardless of run rate required or the number of overs available to them.

There is a lot of competition for bowling in Glenmore right now and a parade of sultry minxes plying their wares in front of the skipper at any given moment (seriously do you guys have any shame :-)). Bray gave the opportunity to Bijju who has not had a lot of bowling in previous games.

Bijju dropped his first two balls short and was spanked to the boundary by Nayan who by this stage was into the 40’s and looking dangerously close to possibly taking Cavs home. Even as the skipper was already contemplating who to get warming up as 12 runs had already come from the over, Bijju bowled a beauty knocking over Nayan’s middle stump and in one blow took the wind out of the Cavs innings and bought himself another over. 7/122 and 30 overs available. At the other end Nathan was taking a bit of a hammering with top edges flying for 6 as he leaked 15 runs from the over. Cavs were still looking a long shot to hammer their way to victory if the last wickets could not be snuffed out.

Bijju into his second over was again expensive as the Cavs batters threw the willow at everything. Working hard to stay in the fight and get yet another over Bijju trapped Nomi in front who spent a long time at the crease talking about his bat before he finally headed off. Parr picked up Nix who ballooned a simple chance to Storey completing his third grab of the innings. 6 well-earned wickets for Parr and if it wasn’t for the unabashed swinging from the Cavs batters his figures would have been a lot more economical going from 5/26 to 6/48 in two overs.

Bijju with 2 /20 from his two overs again felt some pain with Umar smashing him for another towering 6 and a rocket to the fence for 4. Umar’s single however gave Bijju a shot at closing out the innings with another on the spot slower ball. Deep had no answer and with the space where middle stump should be strangely empty Cavs were done. Bijju finished with 3/32 with Cavs all out 166. Victory by 51 for Glenmore.
Inland Small is a strange ground for Glenmore. The big bashing technique of the majority of teams seems to work well as even top edges and mistimed balls sail over the fence. Thankfully there is justification in playing cricket a little more “old school” and scores of over 200 and batting out the full 50 overs wins games for Glenmore 80% of the time.

Really great day for Parr and Storey who starred with the ball and the bat with Storey also snagging 3 catches. Nayan batted really well for Cavs and picked up a wicket but could not get them over the line.

A weekend off for G1 and then a double header testing out the new Forest Lawn ground.

3 wins a washout and 1 loss. Great start to the season and good signs for what’s to come