*Official* Season XIV Discussion and Results

[Samuel_Vimes]

Cricket Web Colts vs Cricket Web Red
at Fardin Qayyumi CC

Most people who had turned up to watch the first three days of play at Goffmouth expected a declaration on the fourth day. Fewer expected that it was Håkon Mørk, the beleaguered Red captain, who could make an aggressive declaration of intent, considering his side's precarious position almost three hundred runs behind at the beginning of the day's play.

Shoddy wicketkeeping had a decent hand in David Kearsley's mammoth score, but he took his chances and, along with John Heads, ensured a full compliment of bonus points for Red. A declaration was contemplated after the lunch session had gone without wickets; however, Heads and Bennett surrendered shortly after tea, earning Colts their second bonus point. Gaurav Nayak thumped 33 runs in a brief innings, before Dylan Cole took two more wickets to end with remarkable figures; however, Martin West fought off the Colts till tea, and after a stand of 31 Red declared after ten minutes of twelfth-session cricket.

Colts lost their way early on going for the quick runs, with Rai run out in the fifth over, and decided to bat out the day to reassess their options. Towns and Fitzsimmons achieved this excellently, and Colts seem in no danger of losing this unless they want to through optimistic declarations.

Cricket Web Red 538 for nine declared (148)
Kearsley 152*, Heads 88; Cole 4/100

Cricket Web Colts 592 all out & 69 for one (23)

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Cricket Web Black vs Masters XI
at Pickford Reserve

Dav Richards was by far the leading run scorer, illustrating where Black lost this game. An appalling performance by the top order on a placid wicket has given the Masters an excellent chance of scuppering the Black title celebrations, though Black will presumably already be looked to the next match.

The surrender can be summed up through the first wicket of the match; an innocuous non-spinning delivery from Warne was hoiked to Odoyo, and Daniel Smith, the captain, had failed in the rearguard. Despite a high run rate, wickets fell at the rate of roughly one an hour, though Borcich and Richards came together at 223 for seven - with the team still in arrears - and ensured that Black would post a target. The new ball, however, proved too much for Borcich and the remainder of the tail, as Borcich was caught by Odoyo near the wicket and Davis and Pickup succumbed easily to Bond, redeeming his figures somewhat. Richards, from number eight, was left stranded on 85, and the Masters required 135 runs in seven hours to secure an unlikely victory.

Cricket Web Black 308 all out & 377 all out (89.4)
Richards 85*, Borcich 56, Cloete 43; Klusener 3/46, Bond 3/82

Masters XI 551 all out & 50 for one (11)

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Cricket Web Blue vs Cricket Web Green
at PDV Dome

Scorecard
Ball By Ball

Blue required 322 runs to win the game after more embarrassment against their former colleague; Thamba Mamesh was left stranded on 246 not out, though the support from Jack McNamara in particular was decent. The new ball was too much for the tail to cope with, however, leaving the opener to carry his bat in a phenomenal effort.

No one in the Dome particularly feared the Green bowling, devoid as it was of Cunningham and Rose. They could not have been more wrong. Ethan McNamara extracted prodigious swing despite hardly prevailing overhead conditions, and with variable bounce the much-vaunted Blue top order capitulated. McNamara took three wickets in thirteen balls to see Blue whimpering at 21 for three, though Stephen Young and Liam Camps fought back to see no further capitulation before lunch.

The joy was short-lived. Having fought off one wily McNamara, another turned up around the corner, as Jack had a loud appeal against Stephen Young dubiously turned down. Undeterred, McNamara returned to bowl a corking top-spinner, smashing into Stephen Young's middle stump for the fourth wicket. Green were, bizarrely, on top.

Rob Bowen, as usual, made his appearance a cameo, this time lasting 20 balls - five of them fours - to make 31, which left Blue with 206 required and five wickets in hand. It was a monumental task, but with Morris at seven and Crampton at eight, the Dome crowd felt entitled to hope.

However, when Morris fell to a Cameron outswinger with a few overs remaining till tea, the crowd began to see the inevitable and headed for the exits, though a good third of the day's play remained. Alex Crampton survived with a couple belligerent shots, but 137 still remained of the target when a rejuvenated Green side began bowling in the twelfth session of the match.

Once again, it was Ethan McNamara who toppled the Blues. Liam Camps, for so long the leader of the resistance, faltered for an inadequate 69, caught well by Andrew Garven at long off, and Sudeep Popat stepped in with 133 still required. He had scant regard for the match situation, hooking his second ball for six over a flummoxed Dinnen at midwicket, but after Crampton had shielded him from the strike for three overs, he found it opportune to show his pad to Ethan McNamara. One loud appeal later, and the eighth wicket was down. Andrew Cameron then returned to end the innings, completing the Blues' tenth loss of the season - now they were forced to rely on a Colts win to keep the league lead, and despite Black's misfortune, they would have to achieve at least a draw in that clash to reach the final and have a claim to the championship.

Cricket Web Green 347 all out & 445 all out (89.5)
Mamesh 246*

Cricket Web Blue 471 all out & 227 all out (63.1)
Camps 69; E McNamara 5/60, Cameron 3/46

Blue    9 10  0 67 51 244
Red     9  8  1 60 52 242
Black   9  6  3 51 51 240
Colts   7  6  5 57 52 227
Green   7 10  2 47 52 204 E

[FaaipDeOiad]

Ouch. Amazing performance by Green it must be said, but we should never have let them back in it.

Luckily, with Black likely to lose and the other game heading for a draw, we shouldn't lose too much ground because of the result. We might fall behind Red but we should stay in second.

[Travis_Teh]

Originally Posted by superkingdave

Haha Smith: Angry man

needs to get some perspective imo

Possibly the Mark Ramprakash of the dev league

Drama queen for sure. Bitch whines about not being selected for the test team every two seconds.

[age_master]

lol at my taking 3 wickets. Mamesh is awesome.

[Travis_Teh]

Get ****ed, Green.

There's no way in hell a ****house bowling lineup such as green could bowl out the blue batting lineup like that on the last days of a first class match. E McNamara and Cameron? Who the **** are they?

Garven and Chapman at less than 3 an over is bull**** too.

Mamesh - 246 / 445 is typical, too. Bastard selfishly leaves a team to be the superstar of another team and finally gets his wishes after a completely mediocre season after batting out of position all year long. Well done.

Glad green are bottom of the table to be honest. Bucket of snot. Hope it's a black/blue final again, clearly the two best teams.

[Samuel_Vimes]

Cricket Web Colts vs Cricket Web Red
at Fardin Qayyumi CC

Scorecard
Ball By Ball

A loss here would have spelled the end for the Colts, as they would then have been 25 points adrift of the league lead with only a game to play. This resulted in somewhat conservative and dull cricket to ensure a draw and a Red league lead after all five days of cricket had been completed. Greg Thomas threatened briefly to kick the game alive during the last hour, but Gaurav Nayak and John Heads kept a calm head and ensured another fortuitous draw for Red against the Colts.

The path to a draw was cleared by murky skies early on, as bad light prevented play from starting for a good hour and a half. When it finally began, Colts were the better side thanks to a gritty innings from Daniel Towns, but no one managed to score at the rate required to really put pressure on Red. They were eventually set 237 from 45 overs, and after a cautious start appeared to go for the target, only to lose three wickets in four overs and think better of it. John Heads kept out 42 balls to secure the draw a little after seven o'clock.

Cricket Web Red 538 for nine declared & 147 for five (45)
Gray 43; Thomas 3/45

Cricket Web Colts 592 all out & 182 for four declared (60)
Towns 60; Kennett 2/66

Match drawn
Man of the Match: D. H. Cole (Cricket Web Colts)

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Cricket Web Black vs Masters XI
at Pickford Reserve

Scorecard
Ball By Ball

An 85-run procession completed the Blacks' condemnation to third place after their second successive loss in first-class cricket; despite having objectively the best record in terms of wins and losses, they are in danger of missing the final unless they beat the Blues in two days. Dale Benkenstein and Imran Farhat were never threatened as they breezed off the required runs inside 17 overs, scoring at rates they had barely touched in one-day cricket this season.

Masters XI 135 for one (28)
Benkenstein 71*, Farhat 49*

Masters XI won by nine wickets
Man of the Match: L. Klusener (Masters)

Table after 19 games:

Red     9  8  2 60 52 246
Blue    9 10  0 67 51 244
Black   9  7  3 51 51 240
Colts   7  6  6 57 52 231
Green   7 10  2 47 52 204 E

[Samuel_Vimes]

Originally Posted by Travis_Teh

Bitch whines...every two seconds.

[Travis_Teh]

Originally Posted by Samuel_Vimes

What a load of ****.

[oz_fan]

Disappointing effort all round there. Really need to lift in the next game and hope results go our way.

[NZTailender]

Originally Posted by Travis_Teh

Get ****ed, Green.

There's no way in hell a ****house bowling lineup such as green could bowl out the blue batting lineup like that on the last days of a first class match. E McNamara and Cameron? Who the **** are they?

Garven and Chapman at less than 3 an over is bull**** too.

Mamesh - 246 / 445 is typical, too. Bastard selfishly leaves a team to be the superstar of another team and finally gets his wishes after a completely mediocre season after batting out of position all year long. Well done.

Glad green are bottom of the table to be honest. Bucket of snot. Hope it's a black/blue final again, clearly the two best teams.

Haha, geeze.

[Travis_Teh]

Originally Posted by NZTailender

Haha, geeze.

Nothing out of the ordinary there, I don't think

[alternative]

Originally Posted by Matteh

Mhmm, bowling reserves a bit poor.

Still shocked Tozzer hit more than 20.

GAGFC.

On another note, stoked with the win and 60. Cheers for selecting me though, even though you still a ****.
Smith is a legend too for wising me some luck imo.

[Neil Pickup]

CWXI now aping reality in that my batting >> my bowling.

[PhoenixFire]

Piss weak effort from me against the Greens, very annoyed at that.

[dontcloseyoureyes]

Originally Posted by superkingdave

Only 6 bowlers from CW averaging under 30 this season (10 wickets or more), guess what, 3 of them are from Black.

Take a look at the last, say, 5 FC games we've had full strength. You can defend yourself all you like but you've all bowled like **** when we needed to win. We started well in FC this season, but we always do. Choke like **** at the back end every year.

But you're awesome though. Maybe you'll take a second innings wicket some day.

Originally Posted by Travis_Teh

Drama queen for sure.

**** off you absolute douchebag. Take a good hard look at yourself. Mork summing it up pretty aptly for mine.

Plus, I haven't even whinged about the test side, I made some sarcastic jokes (probably quite evident to everyone without a mental deficiency that they were jokes, btw. FTR I'm sorry to hear you were lobotomised as a child) earlier this morning but other than that there's been stuff all.

Originally Posted by Travis_Teh

Hope it's a black/blue final again, clearly the two best teams.

There is absolutely no way we'll make the final. I'd love to throw the whole batting lineup out the window but we've got nothing outside of bringing in Stedman and the untried Mohanan. The bowling will be the death of me, really. The pedigree of the lineup (3 test bowlers and one of the most experienced pacemen in the league, but hey) obviously doesn't mean ****. Playing for the pay cheque.