The Christmas Break has arrived at just the right time as the men’s side claim 3 out of 5 victories to end 2021.

As far as toss records go, Tom would be sitting on top of the ladder with 5 wins from 5 tosses, but for the first time this season, he won the toss and sent Bell Post Hill in. No particular reason, just wanted to change things up. Early wickets have been a problem with the white ball all season and that continued on Saturday as the BPH bats were stubborn. A change of bowling seen Soup introduced with an immediate impact. At 1/90 Lachy Hyde was introduced and the game was turned on it’s head in 4 short overs. Lachy took 4/4 and swung the game back in our favour. Tom then found a way through the BPH middle to lower order as BPH finished with an under par 9/170.

Prior to the game starting the sides were thrown into chaos with Sam Hall being picked up as a close contact to a covid case, meaning he had to withdraw. A late call up for debutant Declan Clark meant that he would partner Blake Troy at the top of the order. For his 1st game Declan looked right at home as he cut and drove his way to 33 in quick fashion. When he fell Cossie came in and picked up where Deccy had left off. Cossie and then eventually Layton made batting look easy and the score was chased down with 4 overs remaining to give the guys their 3rd win of the year. A win that came without Sam Hall and Mitch Troy and instead included 4 guys under the age of 21. In all the average age of the 11 guys that took the field was just 23.5, definitely our youngest side on paper in a long long time.

The 2nd XI steam train has stormed into the Chirstmas break undefeated with 5 wins from 5 games. Another fairly complete performance seen our guys bowl first and put the strangle on the BPH bats early. Grant Armistead returned from a sore Hammy with immediate affect, however it was the tweaker himself Mango that ran through the BPH top and middle order. Mango’s 5/24 set up the day as Grant finished with 3 and Will Hall picked up 2 late wickets as BPH were all out for 131.

The boys made light work of the run chase as well, opener Hamish Lucas was in a mood and wanted to start the Chirstmas celebrations early. He cowboy’d his way to 65 and when he fell the score was 2/92. With only 40 odd runs to get, the 2 veterans of the side Tone and Braden looked to finish things off nicely, until Tone fell with a handful to get but the boys escaped with a 7 wicket win and head to Christmas on top.

The up and down 3rd XI won’t be happy with where they’re sitting at the break. After struggling with the bat for most of the season our guys looked to rectify that as a big total loomed. Openers Milso and Col aggressively took it up to the BPH bowlers as the boys jumped out of the gates. When Milso fell in the 14th over the score was 75. Col fell shortly after however that brought Smithy to the crease and after a stop start pre season, it looks like he’s finally found some rhythm with has batting. 2/139 soon became 5/159 as Smithy fell and with a handful of overs remaining the guys would have been eyeing off 180 at least. Unfortunately for our guys 5/159 soon became all out for 171 as we lost 5/12.

With runs on the board and a bowling heavy side, restricting BPH to a score under 172, you’d think our guys would be raging favourites. Not everything works out that way as the experienced BPH side batted extremely well and didn’t give our guys any chances. Dwij bowling his little tweakers picked up the only wicket for the innings as BPH ended the game 1/172 with 2 overs remaining leaving our guys scratching their heads as to how it could be possible having been in such a comfortable position with the bat earlier in the day.

The 4ths have landed inside the top 4 at the break with another great win thanks in large to the young bowlers once again. Youngsters Will Demasi, Fred Lucas, Benny Demasi and Aarav Jain all bowled extremely well, giving BPH no freebies to score from. Aarav had the incredible figures of 7 overs 1/9 as our guys restricted BPH to 6/154, a score that proved to be nowhere near enough as our guys did it easily. Luke Price and Fred Lucas were both in a hurry to get the game over with. Pricey making 38 with 36 of them through boundaries and Fred making a quick fire 62 at better then a run a ball. With the game wrapping up Adam Di Giacomo hit 2 monster 6s to put the icing on the cake and give the guys a genuine chance of playing finals come March next year.

1 team that can almost put a line thru finals now is the 5ths, not that we’ve ever set out to achieve finals. For us, it’s more of a development team with this week seeing 8 kids under the age of 18 take to the field. To make matters worse 1 of the 3 adults received a covid close contact message at the drinks break meaning we had 2 adults, 8 kids and then the substitute fielder being 9 year old Oscar Troy. To the young guys credit the boys fought hard in the field as Manifold made 5/268, Chanda picking up 2 wickets. With the bat, Chanda also lead the way and top scored with 27 runs. Harry Leahy and Teddy Sherwin both playing in their first senior games, looked comfortable at the crease and showed plenty of promise for future appearances as the young side batted for 37 out of the possible 40 overs to dig in and make Manifold work for the win.

Our A Grade women hit the break in disappointing circumstances. Their game was forced to be abandoned 18 overs in after rain washed away any hope for completion. St Joeys sent us in to bat and surprise surprise Sophie Walker continued her purple patch with another fine 39. Her opening partner Sarah Kirby looked good as well as the weather started to turn. At 18.4 overs with 8 balls left in the innings the covers came on and stayed on. Our girls were 3/111 and definitely in a winning position but sometimes, that’s cricket. At the Christmas Break, the girls are currently sitting 3rd in what’s been a great achievement after finishing last, last year.

Our B Grade Girls haven’t been able to have the same success as the As however a few girls continue to show improvement. Bowling first in the Saturday morning fixture, our girls were up against it. The Lethbridge bats pounced on anything short and raced towards a huge score. Opening bowlers Kirralee and Daisy were the pick of the bowlers as both girls got 2 wickets. Kirralee, getting 2 in a row and being on a hat trick, unfortunately she couldn’t get it as Lethbridge finished 6/140. In reply disaster struck early as the girls fell to 6/21 and the Christmas Break couldn’t come any quicker however to the girls credit they battled through and didn’t allow Lethbridge to bowl them all out. Instead finishing 8/45 with Kirralee Lewis backing up her bowling efforts to top score with 9.

After the longest pre season on record and then rain threatening to destroy every game, everyone including players, staff and supporters all need and deserve a break. On field we’re once again sitting in a good position in most grades and off field we’ve just celebrated our 50th kids Christmas Party, which is a great achievement in itself. Santa came and all the kids went home happy. All in all 2021 was a pretty successful year for the club, let’s hope 2022 is the same but for now we with everyone a safe and happy Christmas and we’ll be back to do it all again in a few weeks time.