Trundle Junior Cricket Report

Saturday 16th March kicked off with the sound of rain on the roof and a flurry of text messages wondering if the biggest and final game of the year would go ahead as scheduled.

A fired up Trundle side arrived at the SRA grounds to take on Kiacatoo in the Grand Final with a keen eye on the skies and the radar. The curator and ground staff worked hard with brooms and grain shovels to squeegee the water off the synthetic pitch. A delay to the start time by 45 minutes saw the nerves building to fever pitch among players, parents, coaching staff and hanger onners. Fiona provided custom shirts to all the Trundle supporters and Kylie pitched in with some Fifield cabanossi and jatz. Matt Walter made a ‘Go Trundle’ poster and dad Simon had some green and gold pom poms. There was a real party vibe.

During the Trundle warm up there was a sickening crunch as two of the star players Tommy Sando and Cameron collided going for a high catch (type ‘Steve Waugh Dizzy Gillespie’ into youtube and you will get an idea of how it looked). After a drink of water and a few deep breaths however they were right to go again. Tommy lost the toss and Kiacatoo chose to bat first. With a wet track and the sun coming out we thought this was a pretty good outcome.

We were off to a flying start when one of the Kiacatoo openers was run out for a diamond duck (no runs and zero balls faced), I personally think these should be outlawed in junior cricket. Just too cruel. Vashti and Adam opened the bowling, both picking up a wicket in their first spell. Harry continued on his red hot form from the week beforehand, finishing his 3 overs for only 6 runs. Tom Walter was first change and clean bowled the Kiacatoo captain and chief run scorer! A couple of overs later Cooper removed the vice captain cheaply and the Trundle side had their tails in the air. Josh kept the middle order honest and Braith continued to bowl with great accuracy. Austin and Hughey also bowled well on a wet track and kept the scoring to a minimum. However in what was a case of deja vu from last week there was a big hitter for Kiacatoo that we just couldn’t budge. Vashti took 2 wickets in the last two balls before drinks and it seemed we might just have to try and run him out of partners. Cameron ‘rocket arm’ Strudwick ran out one of their retirees and clean bowled another, but before we could clean up the tail the big rig had bludgeoned 38 from 34 balls. Kiacatoo had set a decent total of 104. On a field where we scored 135 last week, we thought we were in with a pretty good shot.

Vashti crunched a beautiful square cut off the first ball to open our account. Braith played a good supporting role, however when Vashti holed out on just 3 runs the crowd let go an audible sigh. Harry scored well and made it to retirees. The Kiacatoo attack was relentless however, with Cooper and Adam both making it to retirees but having trouble getting the ball away. Josh Charlton slipped over on the greasy surface and was run out, while Tommy Sando was bowled trying to push the run rate along. At the 15 over drinks break we were stalling on 3-32. Austin again faced a blistering attack and retired. Cameron strode to the crease and smashed a quick fire 10 before being bowled. Tom Walter took an almighty swipe trying to repeat the heroics from last week and was caught in the deep. The huge Trundle crowd were in stunned silence as Kiacatoo bowled, fielded and caught brilliantly. In an effort to spark the team up, Simon Walter took his pom poms out to the boundary rope and shouted the old familiar “Give us a T, give us an R, give us a U, give us an N” you know the rest.

When Braith returned as a retiree he started to get the scoreboard ticking over. The reverse sweep boundary from last week however was like an early win on the poker machines. After 5 or 6 failed attempts in this game, Fiona Sando was forced to quickly make a sign up ‘no more reverse sweeps’ and run along the boundary with it. Once that shot went back in the kit bag Braith tonked a couple of boundaries, top scoring on 21. When Harry returned we required 55 runs from the last 5 overs. A beautiful hook shot to the boundary gave us some hope but when Harry fell Kiacatoo tightened the screws and at the end of our 30 overs we had fallen 24 runs short.

Congratulations to Kiacatoo on a well deserved win. Well done to Trundle, we played the Grand Final in great spirit and lost to a better team on the day. Thanks to the two independent umpires and scorers which allowed us to just focus on the game and nibbles. Before we headed to the racecourse for presentations Vashti gathered the team round to give a farewell speech and present Josh, Cooper, Tommy and Braith with cards signed by all the players. They have been stalwarts of the club and we wish them all the best with their future cricketing careers.

Well done to Gus Quade who received the ‘spirit of cricket’ award at the presentations for the Condo Under 14’s side. A huge congratulations also to Cameron, Vashti and Harry who were part of a victorious Under 12’s intertown side that beat Parkes in a nailbiter on Sunday 10th March.

Report and Image sourced from the Trundle Junior Cricket Club Facebook page.