First Grade
Wanneroo 129 (Holly 29) def. by South Perth 214 (O’Day 3/34, Stumpers 2/30, Eaton 2/30)
The ones hosted South Perth in the first two day fixture of the year being played on Saturday and Sunday. We won the toss and batted and got off to a decent start with AV Versani and Chief Billington taking the shine off the brand new ball. We were 2-36 relatively early with the batsmen finding it hard to get going with South Perth not giving much away on what was a pretty dead wicket with low bounce.
There was some resistance from Strawb who battled on well in his first game as skipper and Riley who top scored with 29. We were never able to build any formidable partnerships and were eventually bowled out for 129.
With an under par score, we needed to start well with the ball with 20 overs at South Perth on Saturday evening. The bowlers will admit that we gave them too many boundary balls and South Perth finished on about 1-60 overnight and in control.
The boys rocked up on Sunday morning with some hope that they could reproduce what we have done in the past and win from an unlikely position. An early wicket was what we needed and we bowled much tighter on day two. However South Perth eventually chasing down out total 2 wickets down.
We battled on well and played some good cricket led by debutant Hayden Stumpers who was in some nice rhythm and got his first A grade wicket. Well done Hayden.
We eventually bowled South Perth out for 214 in what was a great effort from the boys and there were some valuable lessons to come from it. The wickets were shared evenly between Slug Eaton, Mick O’Day and Hayden stumpers who were the pick of the bowlers.
Disappointing result but we move on to next week with some valuable lessons to take out of the loss.
Second Grade
South Perth 246 (Fryer 3/44, Richards 2/18, Ardagh 2/46) def. by Wanneroo 256 (Fryer 59, Ardagh 57, Forssman 30, Slattery 29, Harris 26)
The twos arrived at Richardson keen for some Saturday Sunday cricket. Adam Smith lost the toss, successfully though as we batted first. We got off to a good start yet again thanks to Tim “Hoyts” Harris and Mitchell Slattery. From 0/53, a couple of wickets then fell which brought Mike Ardagh to the crease where he hit the South Perth bowlers around with ease for 57 off as many balls. After his dismissal Darcy and Donny met at the crease to form a strong partnership (85) to continue the momentum in Wanneroo’s favour. The two both fell an over before tea as the tail would combine to make our way to a total of 256 at the end of the first day. A very competitive total though we had hoped for more.
On the Sunday we arrived ready to bowl South Perth out on a very, very flat deck. The start was slow but South Perth battled hard and kept us to only the 1 wicket in the first session. Tight bowling from out fast bowlers kept the run rate steady. In the second session we would take 5/35 with Ards and Bailey getting two wickets each and Jordan one (due a terrific leg side stumping by brother Mitchell) to put us back in a commanding position. Coming into the last session we were in a good position until a fight back from South’s Perth’s tail, mostly from their #9 who scored 50 with several sixes, left the game in the balance until late in the day. After Tim ‘size 8s’ Harris had to depart for the last few overs and a random bystander was asked to fill in, tight bowling from Donny (3/44) and skipper Smudge (1/56) got us home with 10 runs to spare.
Third Grade
Wanneroo 169 (Farrant 58, Rae 26) def. by South Perth 8/171 (Walter 2/12, Fitzmaurice 2/24, Brown 2/31)
John “skipper” Walts was a happy man early coming away with winning the toss and choosing to have chosen to bat first. However it wasn’t the best start from the boys, losing Kody “Swear it bounced” Mulcahy early in the first over. The man in form Jayden “Bar1” Rae come to the crease to join Michael “horn” Kelsey.
The boys played their game early and were ticking away nicely. Kelso had enough of playing them alone the ground so decided to whack old mate over the rope a few times before shortly missing a straight one for 22.
The brought the man of the hour Kealey Farrant to the centre, playing very well form the get go. Jayden was struggling to get comfortable with the bat and the groin region after copping one to the place that hurts most and ended up with a handy 26. Youngster Tyler Brown come out and played a good role alongside Kealey, getting out for 24 as he tried to push the tempo. The skipper continued where Tyler finished, running second fiddle to a free-wheeling Kealey. Unfortunately, when Kealey was bowled for a fine 58, things went downhill as we lost 5 for 4 leaving us with 169 to defend.
Walts got us pumped up as we walk out to defend the total. Alex “Fitzy” Fitzmaurice and Josh “Quelch stick” Quelch opened us up from each end. Both did their job early and kept the runs to a minimum despite not getting the wicket. With plenty of bowling options we switched it up and got our quicks on with Owen “making men scared” Brown and John Walter. The big O got the first break-through we needed with some good fast bowling. Skipper took the piss early and had 2/0 off 3 and dragged himself, “I’ll leave it at that” he reckons. The middle overs were taken by the tweakers, Matthew “Caff Marroll” Carroll and Gagandeep Singh. Both bowled well but with a short boundary and pitch where anything short ‘sat up’ the South Perth batsmen managed to keep the runs flowing. Maff ended with 1/26 and G with 0/35, both off 9.
As the game started to come down to the wire, with a required rate of 7 off the last couple overs, the game was going to go to the side that made least mistakes. Unfortunately that was not us, as we let slip several opportunities and gave up too many loose balls at the end. Despite this the game got down to the last ball which South Perth were good enough to get away for a single to take the game.
A lot of things to take out of the games this weekend, some good and some things we can work on to make us a better team for the oncoming two-day games
Fourth Grade
South Perth 149 (C Billington 4/21) def. by Wanneroo 7/152 (Hall 29, Zain 27)
It was a great day for cricket at Richardson Park and also to have our skipper Liam and Callum back after missing last weekend. Callum also achieved a milestone by playing his 50th game for Wanneroo.
Although we lost our 4 game toss winning streak, we were able to break our two games losing streak by beating South Perth in their own turf.
The boys had to bowl first in a flat deck first up. Cody the G.O.A.T opened the bowling attack with Liam ‘reformed cricket’ Carroll. Cody took the first wicket in the first over by taking the batsman’s off stump. South Perth then took some control over the innings by putting up a 60 run partnership but they were slow to get the runs. Due to the pressure of scoring rate the mighty roos were able to fight back with getting their two form batsman back to back and then getting their captain for a duck. A 6th wicket partnership of 50 looked like ominous, but we were able to break that partnership and clean up the tail by getting 4 for 9 and limiting them for 149 thanks to fine fielding and brilliant bowling from Cody who end up with 4 wickets.
Tommy and Yusuf opened the batting for us, needing to set a platform to chase an awkward total. We lost couple early wickets but Yusuf and Keagan got us back in the game with a good intent to score. Through the middle session the game was in the balance as we lost another couple wickets with Keagan finishing on 23 and Kane on 10. Yusuf and Hally settled things with a good partnership, but it was a seesawing affair, Yusuf dismissed for a well fought innings off 27 off 92.
Hally decided offense is the best form of defense, hitting two massive sixes, but he was dismissed alongside Callum soon after and it was left to Cody ‘Day Out’ Billington and Liam ‘Dhoni’ Carroll to scratch out the remaining 22 runs. Cody and Liam didn’t give the opposition a chance as they smoked their way to victory with 5 overs and 3 wickets to spare.
It was good result at the end getting the win and getting back in the top 8 before the two-day games.
U17M
Wanneroo 9/120 (Pearce 48) def. South Perth 10/101 (Marinovich 4/27, C Billington 2/12, Walker 2/14)
U15M
South Perth 8/85 (Wooden 3/12, O’Shea 2/9) def. by Wanneroo 7/93 (Moore 37*, Richards 27)