Match Reports Round 1

Barclay Shield 1st XI

Saturday 8th October saw the start of a new season. After a solid pre-season, the boys were rearing to go. The departure of club greats David Love, Paul Hubber, and self proclaimed champ Graeme Pavey had whispers and doubts cast around the valley about how Plenty would cope with the loss of such great champions. But the arrival of Senior playing coach Greg Wilson from Eltham, the return of Chad Monkhouse to the club and the development of some up and coming future stars such as Louis Smith we were confident we would suit up to round 1 with more than enough skill and solid contributers.

Plenty won the toss and elected to bat, against a Lalor Stars side who were a bit of an unknown quantity with some key departures and new players. Plenty got off to a shaky start losing an early wicket, however were able to consolidate with small partnerships throughout the whole 40 over innings. Although there was a steady stream of wickets the innings never was in danger. David Love was called out of an early retirement and scored a solid 27, Andy Villani knocked around a polished 19 and Nick Curtin also added 18. After 40 overs Plenty finnished with 133, which looked like being a valuable total on a slow outfield.

Our bowling started sporadicially with Luke Rosbrook and Chris Salvatore confusing the batsman with a mixture of good line and length bowling and wide junk. Luckily we were able to get a few on the pitch and when we bowled in decent areas the bowlers had Lalor Stars realing at 3/34 after 12 overs, with extras being the top score at that point. A change in bowling at both ends saw new player Greg Wilson strike with his second ball. Willo and James Love then went on a rampage to rip the heart out of Lalor Stars, where Willo ended up with 5/4 and Lovey 2/6 to bowl Lalor Stars for a pultry 41.

Overall, a solid start with plenty of improvement to come over the season.

B Grade 2nd XI

The two's kicked off their 2011/12 campaign against Lalor Stars and the first Plenty side in history to accomodate our new rooms. 3 boys were playing their first 2nd XI games in Luke Johnson, Sean Deer and Chayse Turnbull, which bought a very youthful feel to the side. Evan Coventry lost the first toss of the season and Lalor elected to have a hit.

Matty Millett and first gamer Chayse Turnbull opened up with the new pill and Chayse struck in his first over to claim his first B grade wicket. Both bowled some good overs, however definately some room for improvement in the coming weeks. Matt Millett finished with three wickets and Chayse with two. Lalor never got any continuity with their innings and lost constant wickets along the way. Probably the most pleasing aspect of the bowling was how Luke Johnson performed in his first game for the side, bowling in great areas with a super line and length for a young leg spinner. He finished with 1/8 off his 6 over spell. Also solid contributions from Nick Stevens and Mark Turnbull picking up two and one wicket respectively. Another pleasing aspect for a first up match was the standard of fielding with all catches held, Matt Deligiorgis took three catches behind the stumps, while Nick Stevens claimed two off his own bowling. After being bowled out Lalor Stars finished on 90.

A positive start was asked for by skipper Evan Coventry and openers Tim Fothergill and Matt Deligiorgis were that from the beggining. However both probably got a little ahead of themselves and were dismissed for 12 and 8 respectively. That bought Jayden Bedford and skipper Evan Coventry to the crease and both showed why they played A grade cricket last season. Both took the Lalor Stars bowlers apart, dispatching them to all parts of the field. JB looked a cut above the opposition as he does so often does, however as he also so often does he got himself out with a loose cut shot straight to point, he finished with 28. Evan Coventry also looked to good for the bowlers on display with a great 38n.o including 3 big six's. The boys from the power plant did it easy with a 7 wicket victory with plenty of balls to spare.

Great start to a season that expects alot.

D Grade 3rd XI

In our opening game of the season, we had a loss to Eltham at their home ground. After losing the wicket of Tim Fitzpatrick on the 2nd ball of the day, Tait Forester and Kyle Ziedais got together and steadied the ship quite well. With Eltham keeping things tight with their bowling and fielding we found it tough to score runs and eventually Kyle went out to a good piece of bowling. Tait and John Sacchetta batted well together and put together a well needed partnership for us. Unfortunately this did not last, and Eltham got a few quick wickets to finish off the most of our batsmen. Our lower order batsmen hung around but did not do any damage to the scoreboard, although Sam Gatt put on a quick 12 runs or so. Jack Sacchetta and Kynan Kett are showing some really promising signs of being great batsmen in the future despite struggling to score on the day. We were bowled out in the last over of the day for a total of 82.

As we went out to bowl Fitzy emphasised to our bowlers that we had to keep things extremely tight with the bowling or they would cruise home quite easily. An edge off the first ball off Eltham's innings from Brady Parke's bowling was missed and Eltham capitalised on this, scoring quite freely off both Brady's and James Spinks' bowling, despite for the most part putting the ball on a good length. Needing a change I put Kyle Ziedais and Alex Cotter on to bowl, as I felt  Leg Spin might do the trick. Immediately Alex and Kyle's first few overs each were fantastic and within this time Eltham provided us with three chances, all of which were dropped. A few loose balls bowled and Eltham got on top of us and cruised home to win without us taking a wicket.

Plenty of room for improvement next week though.