Season 2013/14 got under way on a bright and sunny day at Bulleen, and we couldn’t have asked for a better start, with Colby and Slug knocking up a club-record opening stand in MCC Club XI 2nd division of 108, including 24 fours and one very impressive upper cut for six.  Colby was unlucky to perish on 48, but Slug was able to bat right throughout the innings to top score with 91 not out, the highest individual score for Old Carey in this competition!

PG and Dom came in a keep things ticking over, and then Alex “Puzzles” Bell, after hitting his first ball for four, went on to score 21 not out.

Ending up at 3 for 202, we knew we had something to defend, but playing on Rees it was always going to be a challenge to grind out a victory.

Unfortunately, that was how it panned out, as we struggled to either pick up wickets or dry up the scoring rate and they lost just 4 wickets making 209 in 25 overs.

Liam Halverson was the pick of the bowlers, knocking over their well-set opening batsman with a beautiful in swinger, and keeping their scoring rate well down, conceding just 23 runs in 8 overs.  Tombstone wobbled the ball around a bit, and although his radar was slightly off initially, was able to keep his run rate to under 4 an over.

Rory O’Kane delivered a very impressive spell of off-spin bowling, capturing his first wicket with a vociferous LBW shout and showed some good signs for the future.  However, both Huggy and I will probably like to see a little less of his faster ball, and a little more of his off-side tempters.

Puzzles complemented his batting with a two-wicket bowling performance, picking up two of their batsman caught at short cover.

Although there were a couple of lapses in the fielding department, overall it was great to see the vigour with which we fielded (in particular Kurt Zadnick out on the boundary), which was a huge change from last season.

Although it was disappointing to lose, there were some really positive signs, and hopefully with all the cobwebs now blown out, we should start to put some wins on the board.