In a big weekend of finals cricket we had four sides competing in grand finals and A Grade in a preliminary final. Thanks to Melbourne’s unpredictable weather, games on Saturday were disrupted and so we came back to complete them on Sunday.
Well done to A Grade on completing a fantastic 2 run victory over Banyule in another epic final, following on from last week’s tie. Batting first we made 9/174 from our 40 over allotment with skipper Nathan Chrimes leading the charge with 64. Dillon Pote contributed 25 with the middle order all getting starts.
Banyule started well with the bat and looked to be on top heading into the later overs before Chris Salm (4/24 off 7.4) and Dayne Smith (3/47 off 8) led the team home with Salm bowling the last two batsmen to win us the game with 2 balls remaining. Dempsey Mills (2/27 off 8) and 250-gamer Luke Morgan (1/33 off 8) were the other wicket takers. We will now take on North Eltham Wanderers on Saturday at Eltham Central in the Grand Final.
C Grade took home the club’s 133rd premiership in fine style, defeating Research Eltham Collegians by 75 runs. Led by captain Scott Gibbs (50) we made 4/141 in tough conditions at Eltham College from our 40 overs. Ryan Russell (39 not out) and Ben Jurkovic (22) were the other main contributors with the bat.
Research Eltham Collegians never really got going in the chase thanks to some wonderful bowling early from youngsters Ryan Gleeson (3/5 off 6) and Jacob Bowden (1/9 off 6). Scott Gibbs again led the way with 3/14 off 5 with great support from Dale Juchnevicius (2/25) and Nathan Hoobin (1/12).
Congratulations to Scott and the boys on a fantastic win, a great season and their premiership.
B Grade fought hard against a strong Epping outfit, going down by 6 wickets in the Grand Final. Batting first we made 8/123 from our 40 overs with Elliot Smale (25) and Mat Doyle (24) the top scorers with keeper Tom Hewett making 18.
We took a couple of early wickets before Epping steadied and passed us in the 35th over at 4/125. Josh Money was the best of the bowlers with 2/30, with Dave Rowley (1/32) and Cameron Drake (1/35) the other wicket takers.
Well done to Mat Doyle and his team on a fine season.
E Grade played Diamond Creek and bowled first on Saturday. Diamo made 7/124 from their 40 overs with the wickets shared amongst Noah Gleeson (2/22), Luke Jurkovic (2/23), Wissam Ali (1/4), Cam Lea (1/17) and Brett Lewis (1/19).
We could not quite get going with the bat with Nick Ellks (35) the only batsmen in double figures as we were bowled out for 93 to go down by 31 runs.
Congratulations to Cam Lea and his team on a great season.
G5 began well with the bat before falling away at the end of the innings as we made 139 from 33 overs. Skipper James Dixon led the way with 55 and Sam Coates made 32.
We battled fiercely with the ball but fell just short as Bundoora United passed us 7 wickets down with 7 balls to go. Dylan Kirby took 3/29, Alex D’Amico 2/12, George Coates 1/16 and Rohit Singh 1/23.
Well done to Robin Parsons, James Dixon and the G5 boys on a great season.
The season has one week remaining! Please get down to A Grade to watch the boys take on North Eltham in the Grand Final in what promises to be another fantastic game of cricket. Good luck to the lads!