SEASON 2021-22 ROUND FIVE
DIVISION ONE
OLD SCOTCH CC 5/241 (40)
def. OLD MELBOURNIANS 180 (39.1)
The 1st XI looked continue a promising start to the 2021/22 season, taking on rivals Old Melburnians on a perfect Sunday afternoon on the Meares. OMs won the toss and elected to bowl first, on what looked a great surface for batting.
Despite the early loss of Charlie Schilling, captain Sam Shearer (56) and Sam Dawborn (23) never allowed the OM attack to settle, rattling the score to 1/70 after 12 overs. Following the loss of Dawborn, Mike Sparks (50) and S Shearer continued to take it to the old foe and advanced the score to near 100 in good time. With S Shearer then falling before drinks, Cam Hemp (82) came to the crease and continues his sparkling early season form - dispatching bowling to all parts and eventually seeing the innings close at 5-241 after the alloted 40 overs. It was a fantastic batting performance from the boys and not often will you see three half-centuries in a 40 over innings.
It was, however, a fantastic batting surface and the boys knew it would be a challenge to keep a strong OMs batting lineup at bay. S Shearer (2/26) made the ideal start, castling the dangerous Pike with his second ball and was followed by a big Will Clark (3/22) breakthrough at the other end. Despite a fighting half-century from OMs skipper Morris, OSCC was in control of the innings from start to finish, eventually taking the lsat wicket with the score at 180. Sparks was the other multiple wicket taker, with 2/48.
It was a great performance against a very strong cricket side, with momentum building nicely and the side sitting on top of the MCC Club XI ladder.
DIVISION TWO
OLD SCOTCH CC 6/176 (40)
def. OLD XAVERIANS 85 (33)
The twos looked to bounce back in season 2021/22 against the old enemy, Xavs. After winning the toss, skipper John Stavris had no hesitation in electing to bat on what was a typical road at the College.
Mark Griffiths (43) and Oliver McLeish (28) got us off to a perfectly strong start, with James Watson (25) and Tom Polkinghorne (51 n.o.) continuing to punish the Xavier bowling and push our score to 6/176 at the close. In hindsight, we would’ve loved to have had a few more on the board, however some tight bowling by Xavier restricted the boys.
Nevertheless, the lads were certain this score was defendable. Joel Bennett (0/17 off 5) and Tom Polkinghorne (1/12 of 8) got us off to the perfect start, and although no wickets fell in the first set these two really set the tone for what was to come. Debutant Sam Harle (5/28 off 8) took the game apart from Xavs in a punishing spell and John Stavris (1/9 off 6) claimed his 100th wicket for OSCC, a fantastic achievement. Charlie Hocking (2/16 off 6) rounded out the innings extremely well as we secured a bonus point with 2 runs to spare.
It was great to see the team regroup after a tough couple of losses and come away with a solid and profound victory. We look ahead to South Caulfield next week on the Meares.
DIVISION THREE
OLD SCOTCH CC 140 (40)
def. by FOOTSCRAY 1/141 (33.5)
Travelling to Footscray to play turf cricket is often pretty scary. Travelling there to play a team who the week before had rolled MCC3 for a grand total of 11 runs (that’s right the team score was “all out 11”) was downright terrifying. What made this even a bigger fright-fest was our 7 confirmed players with 24 hours to the first ball. With the help of some good young old boys and a couple of plain old good boys (one of whom had not played cricket for 37 years) we at least got to the ground to take them on.
Of course we lost the toss and were asked to bat - Footscray inspected both the wicket and opposition and thought “we can do better than last week… lets keep them to single digits and be home by 1:30pm”. But, they were wrong!
A stella opening stand had us cruising at 0 to 32 after 8. At that point, a hat-trick took some of the air out of our sails, but we battled on for a hard fought 140 (all out) - something to bowl at we thought. The batting stand out was Ben Lloyd with a fine 43 and a 75 run partnership with Chris McKenna. It turns out, they can also bat, passing us 1 wicket down in the 33rd over. We had 9 bowlers, each of whom tried their best, but the wickets would just not fall.
On to next week when we play Footscray - again - this time at home. Rats.