Scorecard
The curtains shut on the
Greenies Too 2008 season with a showdown against JJ’s last Saturday. In the previous encounter things got a
little heated and we ended up losing, so this was a big “must win”, not only to
finish the season well, but to exact a measure of revenge against the team that
derailed our season. With half the
team out to send off Paulie Foxton on Friday night, the atmosphere was a little
subdued, although we did muster up 9 players by the 12 p’Clock kick off. Which was 9 players more than the
opposition. By about half past Hugh
Thompson had decided to join us, and with JJ’s scraping together 7 men, we
strode out to toss. Keeping up his good
form, skipper Dickie Thomas won the call and charitably elected to let JJ’s bat,
giving them time to find a few more players. JJ’s were docked 5 overs for late
appearance, giving us 35 to bowl at them.
Openers Sammy Dawson and Andrew “Dogga” Dean got the Greenies off to a flyer. With the ball swinging around like a boomerang, the JJ openers were barely able to touch it. Sammy made the first inroads with a peach of a delivery two balls into his first over, cutting the opening bat in two before sending the bails skywards from a deflection off the pads. Dogga joined in the fun the next over, bowling the number 2 without troubling the scorer. With few numbers on the bench, it was starting to look like a demolition job that could be over within 20 overs, however Kevin Coley came out at 3 with other ideas and mustered some good resistance against the Greenies attack, assisted by Brown digging in at number 4. Sam lost his puff after 3 overs, replaced by Hugh Thompson with his patented dibbly-dobblies. Scoring was hard to come by on a lush, ankle deep outfield, and only some big aerial hitting by Coley kept the scoreboard ticking along.
Nick Sellars was brought in after Dogga and immediately came up with the goods, getting Brown caught with his worst ball of the day, effectively ending whatever resistance JJ’s could come up with. Thompson at the other end also struck shortly after with the easiest of LBW shouts that the batsman padded up to straight in front of middle. Nick was unlucky not to have their danger man caught at mid-on after Hugh misjudged the return ball, however the Greenies were always looking in the box seat. Paul Hogg was given the ball for the first time in Toos and proceeded to cause havoc among the opposition, his Paul Harris style cutters leaving them shaking their heads in wonder. The breakthrough Greenies were after came with Hoggy clean bowling the bemused Coley for 46, who walked off the pitch with a huge grin on his face, completely bamboozled by what had just happened. Scott Watson, officially now throwing his hat in with the Toos, also made hay as the opposition struggled with the spin attack. The last few wickets fell cheaply, with Dickie Thomas claiming a couple of stumpings to end the innings. JJ’s, who had come up with a few more players in the interim, were all out for just 98 in 25 overs.
With encouraging words and half time oranges courtesy of the legendary Ron Hargrave at 12th man, Greenies took to the field to knock off the runs. Opening with Steve Smith and Shannon Richards, making his first appearance of the season with the bat, the pair got off to a leisurely start, plundering 14 runs off the first 7 overs before Smith tried to force the pace with a pull that skied up to mid-wicket where it was pouched comfortably. Watto then came in and picked things up with some robust htting from the outset that very quickly reasserted some dominance to the batting. Shan’s resistance finally broke after making an impressive 13 as he was caught and bowled looking to play an expansive on-drive. Hugh came on, then went off again 2 balls later after seeing a straight one clatter into his pads and out went Faisal to give the ball a bit of clout. Watto and Faisal pretty much brought it home together, although both got out with the side needing 15 or so to win, Watto top scoring with 30 and Faisal scoring a hugh 6 over mid-wicket for the shot of the day. Hoggy and Dogga then wrapped it up with some big stroke play. Hoggy scraped past the requiste 10 runs to avoid the fine bottle. Dogga, with the scores tied, needed 6 to avoid the bottle. He gave it his best, and after 3 balls where he could have walked a single to finish the game, he decided that a 6 probably wasn’t going to be on the cards, and ran the winning run to finish a memorable victory.
With the game over before 4 o’clock, post-season celebrations began in earnest early with a large fine bottle and several crates of beer. Chef Ron fired up the BBQ and cooked up burgers and hot dogs, and pretty much earned himself 12th man spot for the whole of next season.
Awards were as follows:
MOTM - Chef Ron as 12th
Man. Half time oranges &
BBQ. Pretty much unanimous
decision.
Play of the Day -