Round 10 saw the UTS North Sydney Bears take on the perpetually strong Manly-Warringah in a first grade 2-day game and a a series of one dayers in the lower grades. The U18 Brewer Shield side also had a T20 double header against Northern Districts.
A strong win in first grade was the sole success for the Bears on what proved to be a frustrating weekend. Third grade came within a whisker of victory while the Brewer Shield team showed marked improvement against a pair of Northern Districts sides.
First Grade
James Crosthwaite reports
Manly- Warringah 225 (T Jagot 91*, B Bryant 70) def by UTS North Sydney 5/226 (M Alexander 4/24, J Campbell 3/33, R Aitken 2/34)
The boys turned up to a beautiful North Sydney Oval looking to keep our winning streak alive as we take on a Manly team with a few dangerous players. We win the toss and Jagot sends them in. Being slightly overcast the boys started well nipping it around.
James Campbell picked up Logan Weston early nipping one back and striking him on the pad to get us off to a great start. The Manly boys proceeded to put on a partnership which was largely through the gaps in our cordon. After Lester bowled Farrell with a beauty off a no-ball, Campbell made things right again nicking him off to Ryan van Kemenade at gully.
Campbell also got us the big wicket off Beadle trapped in front, followed by Ryan VK’s big wicket of Merchant.
Campbell bowled beautifully all day to finish with figures of 3/33 off 16.
From here Matty A stepped in and proceeded to run through the middle order. Bowling tight and making the ball talk, the Manly boys didn’t have an answer to his fiery spell. Matt finished with 4/24 off 16.
Robbie Aitken also took two wickets at an economy rate of only 2 to keep the pressure on Manly, playing a pivotal role in running through the opposition.
After dismissing Manly for an under par 225, we had 17 overs to bat in the dark. Ben Bryant was amazing and was there until the end of play. Unfortunately for us after J Crosthwaite was nicked off, A Crosthwaite followed suit then Matt Alexander as night watchmen thought he would also nick one. However, trusty Tom Jagot and Ben Bryant would see out the day and come back to finish the job on Sunday.
Continuing at 3/30, Ben and Tom played the most professional innings of their young careers. Ben and Tom were up against a quality bowling outfit led by Michael Vsser. The boys locked in their defence and put away the bad balls. They truly wore down the opposition with an incredible 159-run partnership which lasted 4 hours. Benny was eventually trapped in front for 70 off an incredible 214 balls.
With only 40 left to get James Aitken would join Tom and knocked off 16 runs with some beautiful cricket shots and a tight defence. Tom Jagot would continue on hiss way to see the job through in a true captains knock. Tom finished unbeaten with 91 off 191 balls.
Tom Jagot now finds himself outright 3rd in the competition with 571 runs.
Next week we take on Northern Districts with the boys looking for our 6th win on the bounce.
Beware the bear
Second Grade
Rafay Shirazi reports
Manly-Warringah 8/266 (A Shaikh 3/48) def UTS NSDCC 156 (A Wigglesworth 42, B Walsh 35, A Docos 32)
On a great cool morning at the glorious Manly oval the Bears, slightly indecisive with plenty of cloud cover, won the toss and put the Manly boys into bat. After a slightly shaky start with the ball in hand Big Ali Shaikh came on and got the first breakthrough. Despite a few missed opportunities in the field the bowlers fought back and restricted manly to 264 with Ali being the pick of the bowlers finishing with 3 for 48 off his 10. In to bat the Bears lost a few “iffy” wickets early, with plenty of the boys hoping DRS was in play. Wigglesworth then worked hard to steady the ship with Bennett, His classy knock unfortunately coming to an end at 42. The boys unfortunately soon went down getting bowled out for 156. With plenty of great signs throughout the day it’s quite fair to say the boys will bounce back very hard next week !!
Third Grade
Ammar Shirazi reports
Manly-Warringah 7/210 (F May 2/30, P Lindsay 2/46) def UTS North Sydney 209 (Leary 72, C Lloyd 47)
The Bears won the toss and elected to bowl first on a green deck with overcast conditions suiting the bowling line up perfectly. A fired up Jarrod Ninness and speedster Nuwan Whyte started off the attack, quickly sending the manly openers on the back foot with shear pace and bounce. The run rate gradually started to climb up until the ball was handed over to Fletcher May who continued to show off his form with his perfected yorkers and accurate line and length. After Ammar Shirazi took the first pole of the innings, it wasn’t long until Fletcher got one of his own bringing the Bears back on top at drinks. With tidy spells from Fletch and Ammar, skipper Pat Lindsay continued to lead from the front - bowling areas and restricting the Manly line-up to a par total which seemed very far-fetched at the second drinks break. Lachlan Cork decided to contribute in the field with a spectacular runout setting up a very good last few overs for the Bears. Manly ended up on 7-210 with the wickets shared around: Jarod Ninnes (1-20 off 10) Ammar Shirazi (1-40 off 10) Fletcher May (2-30 off 9) Pat Lindsay (2-46 off 10) and Lachlan cork with an outrageous runout.
Young gun James Leary and wicketkeeper Anmol Singh got off to a flying start for the Bears only soon after losing the wicket of Anmol (9). The Bears lost 2 more early wickets sending the Manly boys back on top, The Bears being 3-56 at drinks. In-form James Leary was joined by veteran Chris Lloyd, both displaying mature and game situation batting to bring the Bears back on track putting a partnership of 95 runs. The Bears lost wickets in clumps yet again losing the key wickets of James Leary (72) and Chris Lloyd (47). The Bears required a wealthy 60 runs off the last 10 overs with Ammar Shirazi and Fletcher May at the crease. The two gave the Bears hope and soon the target became very achievable. Ammar Shirazi (20) soon after was sent packing after some poor shot selections and again sending the Bears back on the back foot. Some great shots and running from Fletcher and the lower order set up the bears requiring 2 RUNS OFF THE LAST BALL OF THE INNINGS!! Unfortunately, things didn’t go the Bears way losing the match by only 1 run.
Fourth Grade
Michael Oliver reports
UTS North Sydney 151 def by Manly-Warringah 3/151 (A Cavenor 43, L Stewart 28)
4th Grade made the venture across the Spit Bridge on Saturday to take on the top of the table Manly, in what was expected to be a very competitive match. Tim Robson won the toss on what looked to be a flat one and elected to bat. For the second round in a row UTS North Sydney struggled to get off to a good start with the bat, after losing their first wicket in the first over of the game. From there Adam Cavenor (45) and Ray Alexander (18) looked to rebuild things. With the score looking promising at 2-76, things seemed to be going very smoothly for the Bears. However, again it was the Bears’ inability to convert starts which hampered their progression. Wickets fell at a steady rate and we were only able to amass a total of 150. Lachlan Stewart was the lone stick through the middle to provide a counter attack with 28 valuable runs. In the field a perfect bowling and fielding performance was required from the start. However loose bowling and dropped chances got Manly off to a flyer and from there it was always going to be a tall order for North Sydney to be able to claw their way back. Ben Knox was ruthless with his accuracy and determination to stop Manly, claiming figures of 1-16 off his 8 overs. However Manly were just too strong cruising home to another victory in the 38th over.
Fifth Grade
Harrison May reports
Manly-Warringah 6/226 (D Mooney 2/45) def UTS North Sydney 8/151 (F Atshan 46*, K Lawrence 25, S Vohra 25*)
After winning the toss Fudge Atshan elected to bowl first on a green but relatively good batting wicket in the hopes of trying to get the most out of it in the morning, for our fast bowlers. The first 12 overs were not as good a start as we hoped for with Manly 1 for about 40 runs, even though we had a wicket maiden in the first over off my bowling and had been unlikely with edges falling short and missing fielders. We still dropped 2 simple catchers in these earlier overs. One in the slips and the other at midwicket, consequently the batsmen that went on to make a century.
Because of these dropped catches the team’s moral was low between the 12th and 30th overs. While the batsmen pilled on the runs leading to another 2 simple drop catches. Despite the good efforts from the bowlers Shivam Vohra and Daniel Mooney, Manly was 2 for about 150 runs at this stage. Keith Lawrence during this time tried his best to G up the team. This was relatively effective with a good fight back from us with better efforts in the field, no more dropped catches, and better lines and lengths from the bowlers. Which restricted manly to 6-226 at 50 overs about 50 runs short of what they could have been.
When we came out to bat Fudge had elected to open with Finn Nixon-Tomko and himself, The start of our innings was good 0-35 off 9 overs however Finn was going slow only on 4 at this stage putting extra pressure on Fudge. Fudge the next over had to retire hurt after being hit in the face by a bouncer. With Finn and Gurnoor Singh going very slow the next 6 overs with us only on 44 after 15 overs. When Keith finally got in the run rate had climbed to about 5 runs an over, with the rest of the batsmen including Keith not going fast enough to reduce the run rate effectively batting us into a hole causing a collapse with us 8 for about 110 runs off 42 overs.
Fudge came back out to bat around this time with Shivam both taking a little time to consolidate before smacking 40 runs in the last 6 overs denying the opposition a bonus point.
Brewer Shield
Northern Districts Blue 4/111 (C Thomas 2/19) def UTS North Sydney 64
Northern Districts Gold 6/151 (E Buckley 2/31) def UTS North Sydney 6/82 (G O'Brien 25*)
The Brewer Shield side returned from the Christmas break and had to hit the ground running with a pair of T20 matches, one each against the competition's Northern Districts sides.
Northern Districts won the toss and chose to bat first in the morning game. The Bears had a mixed start with some aggressive NDs batting interspersed with a sharp opening spell from Amelia Sim and some excellent first-change bowling by Caitlin Thomas. UTS North Sydney applied good pressure in the field and with the ball after the retirement of Coper-Jones and held the Trees to a relatively modest total. Unfortunately the Bears couldn't quite get going with the bat with only Grace Keating (16) and Amelia (12) scoring double figures. It was a loss but one that showed a sharp improvement in the field from the pre-Christmas matches.
The girls (and their ever supportive parents) made the trek from Bon Andrews to Asquith for the afternoon game against Northern Districts Gold. Captain Genevieve O'Brien won the toss and sent NDs in to bat, Unfortunately the Bears couldn't follow-up an early wicket to Amelia with further breakthroughs and the Rangers consolidated with some free-scoring batting. Tight bowling by Anjali D'Cunha and the unlucky Genevieve, along with wickets to Lucy Warren and Liz Buckley, kept the total in check somewhat with NDs posting 151 in their 20 overs. UTS North Sydney produced a stronger batting performance that in the morning game, anchored by the skipper scoring and undefeated 25 from first drop. Northern Districts' total proved too much with the Bears finishing 6/82.