One Day Competition - 3C Cardinals vs Merivale Papanui, Edgar MacIntosh Park #1, 3C, 30th January 2016
First off a big thank you to the guys who filled in today as numbers were light! Secondly, it was great to play a game against these guys in good spirits with no niggle in the game.
After the huge weeks rain, we expected to find an average pitch and the idea of bowling first was raised, even though it went against Cardinals rules. Thankfully they won the toss and chose to bat first, taking this heinous crime of decision away from us. Elliott and Nick Smithson opened the bowling. Elliott's spell was 1 over. He is a good batter. Big fast action but we will assume it was the shine of the new ball that swung it down leg. He also took took brilliant catches in the field. Smitty & James Stokes carried on and bowled their full allotment of overs on the trot. Larts put down 2 catches standing up off Stokesy who was unlucky not to take more wickets (he also dropped a 3rd later off Manny at midwicket) The pitch was a dog, with balls popping and dropping like a dooley choir on a camping trip with Father O'Flannagan. Manny & Analbait were then thrown the ball, and they also tied the batsmen down with good line & length and variation in pace (AB - Slow, Slower, slowest) Both Manny & Analbait picked up 3 wickets each. Cooky & Khris (Stokes cousin) then bowled out the remaining 7 overs at good pace and for hardly any runs. Merivale crawed thru to 106 for 9 from their 40 overs.
A slightly modified dou-bro dozen allowed those that hadn't bowled to pick where they batted in the order, and the rest of us drawing for the positions left. Not a lot to report on this part of the game. Stokesy opened and was last man out for 16?...next highest was Larts who was bowled for 10 by a worm burner. 102 ended up being alot of runs on that pitch as Cardinals were bowled out for 51 in about the 25th over. Full credit to Merivale for outplaying us on that deck.
Man of the Match: Analbait
Check out the scorecard from the game.