There aren't many days you can recall in your life that are very special, but for all involved at Manly cricket, Sunday the 3rd of April will be a day close to their heart. It was the day where, for the first time in 133 years, Manly won 2 premierships in the one year after claiming the 2010/11 3rd Grade and 5th Grade titles.
Before we carry on to much, we must firstly thank and congratulate the Easts 5th Grade side and the St George 3rd Grade sides for fantastic games. Both had outstanding seasons and were great opponents. Special mention must go to St George who have not faced a ball in the last 2 Finals. It must be a tough way to end a season, and their Captain Steve Wark won many admirer's with his matter-of-fact after match speech.
Congratulations must also go to the Sydney Uni (1st Grade), North Sydney (2nd Grade) and Sydney (4th Grade) clubs on their premiership victories.
The celebrations carried on long and hard into the evening, with Manly Oval and then Manly Bowling Club being the venues of choice. The customary nude lap was completed, and the night was long... but these are stories for another time.
Both games were hard fought contests, especially the 5th Grade Final where, after leading by 163 runs on the first innings, our boys still had a real fight on there hands and just scrapped over the line with some dogged, nail biteing final session batting.
Player of the Week - Javed Badyari
There were probably 3 worthy recipients of the player of the week. The first was James Boyer, who at 14 has an enormous amount of talent, fight and determination in him, and is a superstar in the making. His 60 in 5th Grade's First Innings was all class The 2nd was James Ritchie. Jimmy hasn't had a great season by his own admission, but pulled out the big guns when they mattered, getting us home in the second innings with 28 Not Out to follow up his 52 Not Out in the first Innings.
But Javed Badyari (pictured above in his marathon innings on Sunday) is a worthy winner. Coming to the crease at 5/143 in 3rd Grade, Javed proceeded to bat for 65 overs for his 33 runs to put the game out of St George's reach. His concentration was amazing as was his temperament. Javed has had allot of raps on him coming through the juniors, but it is a credit to someone so young that he has always stayed so level headed. Well done on a great innings great man.
3rd Grade Final vs St George
Day 1 on Saturday did not get away until 2.30pm due to the pitch still being wet from the mid week rain. Like the semi final, this did not sit well with Jeanie and the boys as it always puts too much emphasis on the toss, with both teams preparing to bowl if won. Again like the Semi Final, we lost the toss and were asked to bat.
The first hour of play was very tough, with the pitch failry lively and, as expected, St George bowling well. But our opening bats, Ryan Bonner and Matt Cranney, fought hard and got us to 38 before the loss of Loose. Dootch Man was very impressive, facing 68 balls for his 22 which goes against all of his normal bomber instincts. We then lost another 3 quick wickets to be 4/52, however Scott Patterson and Andrew Lindsay (Pictured above celebrating his 50), as they have done many times this year, saw us out of trouble and onto 5/78 at the end of day one after 48 overs.
Day 2 saw an early start due to lost overs the day before and DLS finishing, so the touch footy warm up was started early, with some good tries and the odd tea bag thrown in for good measure. Once play was under way, a positive start to the day with Scotty and Billy both hitting the ball nicely saw us to 143 before the loss of Scotty for a well made 50. Billy left shortly after for 56, and a few more wickets saw us at 8/190 with still alot of cricket to be played in the day. But Javed combined with firstly Luke Manell and secondly Nick McLaughlan to bat for 20 odd overs for the last 2 wickets. I don't think we scored a run for 10-15 there at one stage, with Javed blocking anything on his stumps and leaving anything outside off stump. His powers of concentration were brilliant, and even though the St George attack, lead by former NSW fast bowler Phil Alley, kept on coming at him, he was able to see off everything they threw at him.
With Javed the last to go for 33, and with only 23 overs left in the day, St George conceded defeat, and the 3rd Grade Premiership was won. Congratulations again to the boys, it was 3 years in the making but we have finally done it.
5th Grade Final vs Easts
What a weekend for our young 5th Grade side, taking out the Premiership through their defeat of Easts. Minor Premiers and competition leaders all year, they were always going to be a tough opponent, and so it proved to be.
The track was hard and true, but with a bit of cloud cover around we weren't to concerned when asked the field by the Easts captain. The next 36.5 overs produced some wonderful swing bowling from our fast bowling brigade, knocking the strong Easts batting line up over for 111. Wickets were shared with Ashdeep and Butch taking 3 each, and 2 going to both Dave and Pughy. Special mention must also be made of the fielding, with James Boyer and Dave Farrell both taking some fantastic catches behind the wicket to back up their bowlers.
Our innings started with the early wicket of Toby Poole, but James Boyer (Pictured in his innings below) and Jarrod Rawlings put on a fantastic 100 wicket partnership to see us approach the Easts total. Jarrod was out for a well made 48 with the score at 104, but Jimmy saw us safely past their score before departing soon after for 60. Jimmy is a great young cricketer with allot of talent and will be moving up the grades in the not to distant future.
Pughy and Louie saw us to 148 before a few quick wickets put a big lead in jeopardy. Enter James Ritchie. With great patience and poise, James combined with our tale to see us 7 down at the end of day 1, and then put on another 80 runs at the beginning of day 2 to see us with a 163 lead when we were all out for 274. James ended up unbeaten on 52 and played a stellar hand.
With such a big deficit, Easts needed to come out swinging to get anything out the match, and come out swinging they did. With their opening batsman hitting a chanceless 142 off 111 balls, Easts racked up 7/300 off 39.3 overs, with balls getting bombed to all parts of the ground. No one was really spared, although Cameron Ashe did end up with a 5 wicket hall. Easts declared at tea to leave us 38 overs to bat out the match, or score 140 runs to win.
Although confident, at 5/26 after 8 overs, things weren't looking to flash. But again, the boys stepped up. Louie Anderson and James Ritchie combined to take us to 100, but when Louie was dismissed, we still had 4 overs to bat with 3 wickets in hand. Captain extraordinaire Dave Farrell batted out the last 4 overs with James to see us home. Special mention must go to James on the amount of courage he showed with Easts really coming at us hard in the last 10-15 overs. he was not dismissed in the game and arguably won the game off his own bat. Congratulations James.
Amazing scene’s were seen at the ground, with the boys bringing home Manly's first 5th Grade title in history. One again, congratulations to Dave and his amazing bunch of fellas on the great win, we are all very proud of you.
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