With the pitch looking a bit green and plenty of clouds around, we decided to send Old Scotch in to see if we could bowl them out cheaply. Unfortunately, 287 runs later showed us that we couldn’t.
It was obvious early that bowling was going to be hard, as anything not exactly on target was easily dispatched to the small boundaries on Rees. Unfortunately, we spilled a number of difficult chances that made our task even harder.
There were some positives to come out of the bowling, with Puzzles picking up 3 wickets and Pig 2 at the end. Rory and Will Vickers each picked up one, but we were glad to finish up after 40 overs of chasing leather. Special mention should be made of Huggy’s first catch for the year, getting rid of their dangerous captain with a very polished leg-side snare.
When we batted we scored quickly, but we just kept losing wickets. No one was able to score above 20, but 5 of the top 6 batsmen got into double figures. Once again we had a good start from Colby (16) and PG (18), but after their initial burst, we just couldn’t put together any consistent partnerships.
As disappointing as the result was, hopefully we learned some valuable lessons about being patient when bowling and grinding out an innings when batting. With our next game to be played on the much wider spaces of HG Smith oval at Royal Park in a couple of weeks’ time, life might be a little easier for the bowlers!