United Cricket Club (Counties Manukau) Incorporated

The matches played by the three Club teams on Saturday, 22nd November resulted in a mixed fortune for the Club: Senior A won its match at home against Manukau by five wickets, Reserve 1 lost a close away match against Manukau by 14 runs & Reserve 2 lost at home against Waiuku Cricket Club by eight wickets.
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RESERVE 1
Playing with just 10 players, captain Shane Lovell elected to field first after winning the toss. The return of Cameron Bell to the team for his first match of the season augured well for the team as he, along with Lawrence Minchinton (6-0-22-1), bowled a very controlled opening spell that tied the Manukau batsmen down. This resulted in the openers running a risky single & Liam Jackson capitalising on it to get a brilliant run out. Spurred by this, Cameron (6-2-11-1) & Shane Lovell (who bowled first change) added some more aggression to their bowling & struck three quick blows to have Manukau reeling at 4/40 after 17 overs. Callum Jude (6-2-15-0) bowled a very accurate spell, beating the batsmen at regular intervals, but without any luck. Manukau batsmen Gavin (29) & Aiden (23) took recourse to some lusty hitting & hit Shane (4-0-23-2) for three fours in his fourth over. This resulted in the introduction of Liam Jackson (3-0-16-2) to the attack to partner Thomas Raybould (5-0-31-3). The pair held their nerve amidst the lusty hitting & snared five scalps between them, while Lawrence chipped in with a wicket in his second spell, leaving Manukau all out for 126 in 30 overs.

With regular opener Rick Eastham on Senior A duty, Josh Burgess opened with Shane Lovell, but Shane (0) was snared soon by Aiden, with the score reading 1/7. The innings was resurrected by Josh & Lee Ter Huurne, who took the score to 2/41, when Lee (6) was undone by Brock. This brought the out-of-form Deepak Bhakoo to the crease, who started consolidating the innings along with Josh as the pair successfully navigated a few overs from the dangerous pair of Brock & Julie. Once set, Deepak got going with a couple of crisp boundaries & just as the partnership looked like building up, he holed out to mid-on while going for another big shot over the top. Cameron Bell (3) did not last long, but Thomas Raybould (7) & Josh (45) took the score to 88 with some sensible batting. The two were dismissed in quick succession & Callum Jude (8) negotiated the bowling superbly for a while. Running out of partners & with a batsman short, he started going for the runs & hit a couple of well-timed boundaries. Going for another big one, he was undone by Zach's accuracy. Luke Burgess (1) & Liam Jackson (0) departed soon, leaving Lawrence not out on 1 & the team short of the Manukau total by 14 runs.
Josh Burgess (45) anchored the innings well without much support from any of the other batsmen, which is evident from the fact that the second-highest score (Deepak) was just nine. Great temperament exhibited by Josh !
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RESERVE 2
Playing with 10 players, United Cricket Club batted first against Waiuku Cricket Club & their innings folded in just 13.5 overs at 9/30. Michael Bongard, opening the innings, carried his bat through the innings & was the top scorer with an unbeaten 14. The absence of Shane O'Neill & Homi Mistry was clearly felt as none of the other batsmen could stay at the crease to support Michael, the second highest score being 4 by Nick Moa & as many as five batsmen getting the "most popular score" of 0. M.Carson took four wickets for Waiuku, while R. Norton & M. Daniels took two each.

Waiuku's reply was also shaky & they lost both their openers to Nick Moa in no time. The target, though, was too little to test their remaining batsmen & they won easily with eight wickets to spare, using only eight overs to cross the line.