With the weather playing havoc on the A Grade fixtures and after much shuffling of the team list, we finally headed to Busselton for the first rounds of the T20 competition.
We bowled first against a very strong Yobs line up, and despite Trent Mathews producing a beauty to remove Nayt Colombera, the runs came freely. It took an over of inspired rubbish from skipper Al Wilkie to bring the breakthrough.. (the over went - 4, 4, 2, 2, wicket, wicket, both wickets coming from mistimed slogs).
Our 'death' bowlers then did the job for us restricting Yobs to 7/29 from the last 7 overs. Jordan Stanbury 3/9 off 3 overs, Trent, 2/24 off 4, and Cody Rogers 1/5 from a solitary over, being the pick.
Unfortunately the target of 129 proved to be a bridge too far as the top order all got starts but failed to capitalise. Jude Shinnick showed great maturity making 19, and David Holmes finally got on the board for the season with 29.
Our own collapse of 6/4 just about put the game to bed, before some lusty hitting from Jordy, 18 not out, batting at 11 kept us interested right to the end. This game ran over time so it was a bit of a scamper across town to Bovell Park for game two against Dunsborough.
Batting first this time we hoped for better fortunes. However poor shot selection early had us in a bit of trouble. Tyson Warnke batted well for 23, but again the middle order succumbed to the pressure.
Three runouts including the complete barbecue of Paul 'Linford Christie' Tognolini, certainly did not help! BBQ chef Kurt Thompson redeemed himself with a gutsy 29 not out. We finished on 8/101 - was this enough?
The situation called for a roll of the dice and the new ball was thrown to Holmesy whose darts proved very difficult to get away. With Jordan Stanbury bowling extremely tightly at the other end the pressure started to mount on the Dunsborough bats. The first wicket fell in the 6th over with only 22 on the board.
Trent Mathews and Blake Gillam kept the pressure on, until Dunsborough captain Andy Mahoney tried one big hit too many - the ball flew high to cow corner where Cody Rodgers ran around to somehow manage to cling on to a super catch looking into the sun. That seemed to burst Dunsborough's bubble and the Hawks started circling. Dunsborough crumbled under the pressure losing 9/28 in 6 overs to finish with only 76. Trent Mathews became unplayable to finish with 4/15, while all other bowlers deserve a mention.
Blake 1/16, Kurt 1/6, Tyson 2/3 of the final over. Special mention for Holmesy's 4 overs for 20, and Jordan 1/16 at the top of the innings. It was that opening spell that turned the game our way. This is a great group of players and now we have tasted victory there is a desire for more.
C Grade
A great start to the T20 competition against Nannup. We lost the toss and were put into field. With the decision to bowl Bailey Kelly and Team captain Joel Lawrance. Bailey Kelly was dead on target, bowling great line and length and had the opening pair struggling to find runs.
Lawrance at the other end struck first in his first over and then Gain in his second to, although the 3 wides didn't help but it sucked the batsmen in to play one down leg side and be caught by Harvey Fisher who kept all day and saved a lot of byes and runs that were certain to go to the boundary.
With only four overs to bowl each person, Lawrance gave up his spot after three and threw the ball the Emu Currell who continued his fine work with great line and length. In his first over Nannup's in form opener smashed one to cover only to find the safest hands in the first gamer Greg Fisher. At this stage Nannup were three down for not very many. They say it's not always about pace in T20 so we decided to throw the ball to two of our more mature players in Danny Weston and Adrian 'Brown dog' Brown.
Danny's inform bowling soon saw him pick up his first wicket and had Nannup great Briesner not knowing what to do, dancing all around the pitch but couldn't be put away.
Brown had the ball moving so slow that even Peiter couldn't contain himself and danced down the pitch only to see the ball spin past hit bat and his bails be taken off from a great stumping by Harvey, with chirping in the field all day by Alan, Darcy and Jono Outred it wasn't long before Brown Dog had 4fa.
The final few overs came to and Captain Lawrance's maths hadn't quite worked out and he was a bowler short so he only had option - hand the ball to Mark Jones. In two overs Jones bowled the perfect length and length and was very unlucky to see one fly over slips hands and trickle down for four. With this the last over we hand Nannup ending on a score of 94.
Enter Weston and Jones. From the start Weston looked in. Jones fell to a perfect nut from opener Rat who as always bowled a beautiful left arm inswinging yorker and rattle the stumps. Young Harvey Fisher entered and put on a quick 14 with some fine display of skill and talent. But the day went to Weston with a score of 60 (I think) and a great display holding his bat to the end as we passed the score of 94 in the 13th over.
A special mention to all that didn't get bat or bowl but sometimes it's about the bigger picture - a great win.
COWARAMUP scored two thrilling victories from two games to race to the lead in the B-grade competition when the opening round of the BMRCA's T20 competition was held on Saturday.
With Thursday and Friday's rain resulting in all A-grade games being washed out for the weekend, the focus switched to the B- and C-grade competitions. Richard Bramston was the star for Cowaramup, scoring 32 in the team's winning total of 7-114 against Vasse, and then taking 5-26 in Cowaramup's last-ball win against St Marys.
YOBS scored the highest B-grade total on Saturday when they notched 128 against Margaret River Hawks, who responded with 111. Tait Spowart's 38 and Ethan Piggott's 4-16 were instrumental in YOBS' victory. St Marys started on a strong note when they overcame Dunsborough's total of 9-78 from 20 overs with three overs to spare, Ryan Lohr hitting 32 and skipper Pete Grygorcewicz snaring great figures of 4-7 for the victors. - Allan Miller
