B Grade - Semi Final

Water Water Everywhere........

With the continuing bad weather, Saturday saw us doing a tour of the town to find a ground "safe" enough to play on.

Larapinta Oval 12:00pm - A bad low spot, with water pooling in the slips area, was deemed "unsafe" to play on. This is despite the fact that the water had been present all season, with other games seemingly OK to play there. A call was made to the Association, and we were advised to move the game to CDU.

CDU Oval 12:25pm - Twenty minutes and 20 cars later, we were confronted with ankle deep water nearly the length of the pitch. Sweeping the water out, only to see it run back in again began to get a bit monotonous. With time slipping away, Toolbox did a trip to Head Street to check it out. The call came back that it was just as bad as CDU. Ever the optimist, Rowey (Our Umpire) drove out to have a look as well. In the meantime, some buckets were sought, and we began to bail out the pitch. The call came from Rowey, saying that Head Street was no good (we already knew that), and that it was too late to push the C Grade game from the only decent ground left, as they had already started. A quick scout of Ross Park by Toolbox proved it to be OK, this was confirmed by Rowey 15 minutes later. So, an hour at CDU, and all and sundry packed up for Ross Park.

Ross Park 1:25pm - After navigating the water surrounding the car park, moving the soccer nets, marking out an "extra wide" field and finding scorebooks and players, the game finally got underway at 1:55pm, albeit in an altered 35 over format.

A big thanks to the B Grade boys, who worked tirelessly and together to get our must play Final up and running. Mick Betteridge even going above and beyond, and hiring a generator and pump to clear out the water at CDU, which he managed to get hold of just as we moved the game. Sorry Mick.

The advantage of finishing second it seems, is that you get to walk around complaining and kicking the football, and not actually do anything to get a game going. I'm not saying that if the roles were reversed we wouldn't do the same thing, but I'd like to think that we would at least try to look like we cared.

Not too much else to comment on. We won the toss (a very rare thing), and batted. It seems the lure of the small oval, and the possible big scores that came with it were too much for us, and we fell all out for 112 in the 27th over.

Westies came out slowly, with Big Mick taking our first wicket with the score on 1. Francey not happy, but we were ecstatic. Ditchy, Macca and Gav all took wickets, before a large shower passed through, and drinks were called early. We were on the up, with Wests 4/44.

Funny game, cricket. It seems that the rain washed away any ascendancy we had. We failed to take anymore wickets for the day, with Greg VandenAkker smashing 55, while outliving at least 7 chances.

So, all over in 27 overs. It was disappointing to say the least. We haven't had the best season, for many reasons. Struggles every week to get players on the field, coupled with not being able to field a consistent side, resulted in nearly 50 different blokes playing B Grade this year. I think we did extremely well just to make the finals.

5 in a row would have been amazing, but it just wasn't meant to be. After 3 years at the helm, I will be stepping down as Captain next season. Work and Family have taken a bit of a back seat recently, and I really haven't enjoyed cricket as much as I have in the past. Hopefully some fresh blood will get everyone interested again. It's been a fantastic trip, but the time has come to let someone else have all the fun. I think a stint of "play where you're picked" for me will be good. I'd like to thank everyone that has helped during the year, doing the crap that I just don't have time to do.

Anyhooo...... Good Luck to the A Grade and C Grade this weekend. Looks like some beautiful weather!!!!

Cheers
Scott