Greystanes 9(dec)/243 def Baulkham Hills 83 and 128

A belated post, but I should put it down that the mighty Greystanes B10’s cricket side had a big win against Baulkham Hills last weekend…

At stumps on day 1 (which I think I may have previously reported last week) Greystanes were 5/164 in reply to Baulkham Hill’s first innings of a mere 83. Yours truly had scored 68 (out during the last over of the day).

Day 2 saw Greystanes bat for a further 45 mins before declaring at 9/243. All batsmen made a good fist of it with plenty of starts and the late order hitting was excellent. I did though remain the high score at 68 *cough* but everybody contributed – it was a real team effort (remember, there is no “I” in team, but there are five in “Individual Brilliance”).

Therefore with a comfortable lead and plenty of time, we set out to bowl out Baulkham Hills. To their credit, they made a good fist of it and at the first drinks break were 1/70 odd… we were very flat in the field and we seemed to be going through the motions. At the next drinks break, they were 5/120 odd after we had improved and the equation was we needed the last 5 wickets and they needed another 35 runs to make us bat again. I personally was looking forward to having another bat to run down a hopefully small target - not that I was thinking of my batting average ;-) – but the bowlers had the final laugh with our leggie Crazy Dave Mandic ripping through the tail with a further 4 wickets to finish with 6/26. We took those last 5 wickets for only 3 runs and we ended up winning by an Innings and 32 runs.

Apart from that sloppy start to the second stint in the field, it was a great effort and we’re looking the goods. The comp has developed very quickly into two halves with the Top 3 teams clearly ahead (we’re in that group) and the remaining four teams fighting it out for 4^th spot for the semi finals – and we’re not even half way through the season yet. In addition, we get the BYE next round before we finish the first half of the season against the currently second (and arch rival) Wenty Waratahs. Waratahs won our Grand Final last season and we’re keen to beat them...

Personally, I’m having probably the best season I have ever had with the bat with an average of 38.50 (and that’s considering I have had 2 ducks!) and am feeling fairly confident at this stage (have cursed myself now though by blogging this!).