Batting: Eli MacKinnon 27 (RTO), Noah Doyle 23 (RTO)

Bowling: Lachie Poole 2/9, Josh Franklin 2/14

 

WHAT A GAME!!!

The boys all appeared calm on Sunday morning to take on the Bunyips at Hughes Oval for their first ever cricket Grand Final.

Our Captain, Lachie, supported by Vice Captain, Isaac had looked at the Bunyips stats and strategically opted to bowl for the first inning when he won the toss.

Noah and Eli started out strong with some extremely accurate bowling making it hard for Bunyips to score any runs. After only four overs Midnight claimed their first wicket with an awesome runout by Aiden.

At over 5, a cracking bowl by Joel resulted in a great catch by Noah, taking the second wicket of the match.

A few tough overs followed with Bunyips scoring lots of runs. Momentum changed when Lachie got two wickets off two balls, one a a bowl and catch and the other caught by Eli. Josh was next taking two wickets in the 18th over, one a catch by Isaac and the other a catch from behind by our awesome wicket keeper Will, taking the team to 5 catches for the innings. This momentum continued with Isaac getting the next wicket in the 19th over and Noah taking the 8th and final wicket in the 20th over.

With a run chase of 97, the boys were confident they could do it. Think the families were more nervous than the boys.

Our opening order batsman Milan, Shourik and Finn took the pressure all in their stride and did exactly what we had hoped they would do. They held their nerve, tired out the Bunyips opening bowlers and score runs in the process. Eli and Noah were next and the had an impressive partnership, cranking up the run rate scoring 27* and 23* respectively, putting the team in a comfortable position only needing 15 runs to take the win. Lachie and Will were next, both getting some quick runs. Isaac was lucky to get a bat with only 3 runs needed, after two balls it was all done and Midnight had won their first Grand Final.

A HUGE thank you to Simon Henry who has been an AMAZING coach and mentor to the boys over the season. His dedication to the team has been incredible.

To our regular scorers, we would have been lost without you, so THANK YOU. Ditto to our square leg umpires standing out in the heat, doing up a lot of shoelaces.

Congratulations boys, it has been a joy to watch you each week. Like every week, the Grand Final win was a complete team performance with each of you contributing to the win. All of you should be proud of what you brought to the team and the improvement you have all made throughout the season.