The best part of the random cup draw is opening at home. Cha-ching! We predictably smoked a bot. FC opens on Tuesday with one of the handful of truly competitive sides, though not the one I expect to be fighting for promotion.
getting owned against probably the most even team in my FC league. he declared last ball of the day on 5-503. He as a NZ u-19 bat who scored 303* - without him the game would be close to even. get to see how badly my bats suck tomorrow.
lost the toss, batted first and am now bowling. my innings shows what happens when you go up against an elite/elite bowler. End of Over 17 (1 runs). Itsy Bitsy Spiders: 33-6, runrate=1.94 Trail by 131 runs. (Cook County Cricket Club 164-10) Rose 7-2-12-2 Black* 4 (10 balls) Bonner 0 (17 balls) Last Wicket: Smith lbw b. Rose 1 (FOW: 29/6)
Peters had an easy win in FC. They didn't bother extending it to a 3rd day. Norse is in the process of smoking MAIDSTONE. Assuming my bowlers remember to take wickets tomorrow, we'll have a several hundred run win.
It took 50 overs to close out the match, so I could have declared 20 or 30 overs before the end of play yesterday and saved some PFL for my bats. Oh well. Norse eeks out a 796-run win.
yeah, i saw that. he barely beat me in BT20 (on the 2nd to last ball), but I'm not sure how many of his best guys played in that match. regardless, I'm thinking I'm going to lose. won't stop me from trying though.
the conditions were perfect for batting, made 5-346 @ stumps on my H & F pitch. He has 2 awesome bowlers (for my crap standard) & i have 1 more resp bat to come. Set declaration at 455, doubt i will make it but that should be around lunch. His top 3 bats are golden, after that pretty average, so if i can get some early luck with my best LFM set to attacking i am in with a good shot to roll him. Really want to win all my home games to give me a shot at staying up.
Norse declares on 370-3, with Ritchie on a double century exactly and Sarge on a slower-than-usual 36. We're putting Knights of Valhalla in on a slow pitch, partially cloudy and humid weather, with 45 overs to work with. I'll be mildly disappointed if their first innings last the rest of the day.
Bad day, got rolled quickly & his openers went the tonk, they are 8-432. have got 6 points from this game, will be lucky to hang on for the draw.
bowled them for 30, with Coetzer taking 9 wickets. at 425-3 at the end of play and am declaring at 430 and hoping to bowl them out quick for an easy win and some rest before Ballard this friday!
If it's quick you're going for, I'd declare at 360-ish instead of 420-ish, as long as you're confident in your bowlers. I'm going to ring up a mammoth victory, because I'm trying to stretch to three days. Batted all day today, I'll bat the rest of the day tomorrow after my bowlers kill them off, finish the match bowling on the third day.
played my scrubs in FC in an away game saving PFL for the cup on the weekend. got rolled for <100 first innings, he batted out all of day 2 & i got 8 wickets so that will give me some points at least. resigned to the fact i am going to demote from this FC league, i should be relatively competitive for the next shot at div IV when brough, featherstont & tindall all pop to remarkable bowling & the bats will be around the same levels. aiming for 2nd spot in my OD league this season now & next season is going to be double promotion in OF & FC (that is the plan anyway)
got knocked out of the cup on the weekend, not shaping up to be a very successful season. hoping to finish 2nd in OD. should get some good primary pops over the next month, 2 bowlers to quality & 1 to superb, a bat to remarkable & another 2 bats to superb.
The away leg of what is effectively a two-legged battle for FC promotion begins tomorrow for Norse. If we can beat Peters Utd on points for the home and away matches, I doubt anybody else will challenge either team.
what a ************ total by my team and a wasted GFI.... End of Over 18: 72-10, runrate=4.00 Jervis 3-0-8-4 Rose* 0 (4 balls)
This week is turning into a cluster******** for me. First, we lost to Peters Utd, only scoring 200-odd in the second innings, in sunny weather on a flat pitch. Now, I'm chasing 300 at home after my bowlers did two things today, jack and shit, on a dusty pitch in partly cloudy and humid weather. Oh, hey, not only did my bowlers shit the bed, my bats are at it as well. Clairmonte gone for a duck, and now Sarge is gone for 8.
i've got a bitch of a schedule coming up. easy FC match this week but then, bellissimo ODer Rovers Town Cup bellissimo FC Doctors ODer bellissimo FC Peters Utd ODer
bellissimo is throwing his FC match this week. pisses the hell out of me. I should've thrown my last match last season and let the other team win, thereby relegating bellissimo (he threw the first half of his FC matches last season and then won/tried to win the rest and stayed up on points over the guy that I crushed in the last match).
not confident anymore. my bowlers sucked balls today, put on 323 for a 214 first innings lead, had them at 4-86 & at stumps they are 5-351, so i am now down by 137 still needing 5 wickets. i am expecting my batting to collapse tomorrow with my 3 decent bats getting scores in the first innings, set 3 main bowlers to attacking to try & knock them over early so the chase doesnt get about 200. should be a good days cricket to watch. argh!!!!!!!!!!!!!
FINALLY!!!!!!!! won by 7 wickets, hall took 7 in both innings for 14 overall - going to nickname him murali the win moved me to 5th place, but there is a 60 point gap to 5th so unless the players perform the 2nd half of the season it is curtains. have another winnable game next week, he has no spinners & i get a resp spin rating, so the pitch is going to be dusty, batting is about even.