Senior B's Tough Day Out Against Grafton

The morning started with much excitement as a truly beautiful summeresque day greeted the HCCC B team in Gulf Harbour for their season opener. With a team mixture of youthful exuberance and seasoned experience, there was a quiet confidence within the ranks, however the opposition, a gelled together well oiled winning machine, Grafton United (fresh from their unbeaten run to win the C1 competition in 2015/16) were happy to rain on any Coastie's enthusiasm. 

Grafton elected to bat after winning the toss, and started their innings shakily. Gautam Bahl HCCC opening bowler got the first breakthrough, when the Grafton opening batsmen started getting bogged down and hit a ball straight to mid off. Two overs later Gautam struck again with an absolute unplayable yorker to dismiss the new batsman without troubling the scorers.

Next followed an arm wrestle as Grafton managed to hard graft a good little partnership, but young Logan Dunn in his first game of senior men's grade cricket showed excellent composure with the best line and length of the bowling unit for the day, to take the next wicket. 

Another wicket fell, but then entered the Grafton master blaster Abishek Reddy who blasted four 4's and two 6's in his quick fire 52 to take the game away form the home team. The rest of the Grafton batting line up didn't add much the scoreboard, however early season inconsistency cost HCCC dearly and extra's top scored with a troubling 69. Good bowling performances from Evan Oelofse (3 batsmen clean bolwed) and a very economical spell from captain John-Ray Tait (2 for 36 from 9 overs) ensured Grafton were bolwed out without finishing their 45 overs, but they still managed to score 236. 

That unfortunately was the last of the fight from HCCC as only one batsmen managed double figures, as the B's were bowled out for a meagre 45. Grafton did not make any bowling changes as their two opening bowlers ripped through HCCC with precise and quick line and length from Kushal Patel and almost unplayable in-swing from Sanand Shaha taking 9 wickets between the two of them. The final wicket fell with a mix up, resulting in a run out and summed up the batting innings. 

Lots of positives to take from the game though, and the spirit of this team will stay high despite the heavy loss. Some great fielding and catching and very good bowling at times made it a worth while day out - we had a good crowd that enjoyed the day in the sun.  The other positive from finishing early was that many of us were able to head over to Stanmore Bay to watch the Premier Reserve team, lead by a magnificent 177 not out by Tim Stokes, cruise to victory of East Coast Bays with 15 overs to spare...not too often you get to witness an innings like that to make a score of 300 look small.

For our Senior B's, it's time to hit the nets to work on the batting this week and reducing those extras. 

HCCC XII - Milan Kruger, Paul Weymouth, Steven Henshaw, Evan Oelofse, Graham Lee, Gautam Bahl, Jaie Bromley, Robert Price, John-Ray Tait, James Stephens, Logan Dunn, (12th man Murray Silverstone - thanks Murray for stepping up from Presidents to ensure we had a wicketkeeper reserve). 

For the full match scoreboard Click here