A TEAM of A-grade cricketers from the Bruce Rock-Narembeen-Merredin Cricket Association travelled to Perth last week for Country Week Cricket.
They proved unlucky in the coin tosses and had to field first in scorching conditions for most games.
The players worked hard but unfortunately were ultimately knocked out of A-grade.
Scorer William ‘Spud’ Tacey provided the following account of the week’s games.
Sunday: Peel 1 at Rockingham.
Starting on Sunday, January 17, the A-grade side travelled to Rockingham to play Peel 1 in temperatures above 44 degrees Celcius.
Peel batted first, only to have their openers put on a stand of 131 and for them to go onto score 153 (J Lee and M Green) to score a well put together 72.
Merredin’s bowlers toiled even harder to try and get a breakthrough with G Yandle to bowl 15 overs for a hard two wickets, which cost 68 runs.
The other wicket takers were A Repacholi and A Shearing, who got a wicket each.
Peel finished after 60 overs with a good score of 362.
Batting next, BRNMCA got off to a good start by scoring 20 runs in the first 4 overs, but with the heat being so oppressive, fielding had sapped their strength, and they were only able to achieve a score of 112 runs with best batsmen being G. Yandle making 21 and N Jones and D Hayes-Thompson scoring 17 a piece.
At the end of the day, the team said thanks and goodbye to three players who had to go home for work commitments, N Jones, J Bow and A Repacholi.
Monday: Eastern Goldfields at Charles Veryard Reserve East
As with Sunday, BRNMCA lost the toss and were put into the field in some more incredible heat – 40 degrees Celcius in the shade.
Bowlers and fielders toiled away and kept them to a score of 154 runs off 58 overs of their allotted 60 overs.
Also for the second day W Hooper Batted well for 20 runs not out.
BRNCA/MCA posted a very competitive score of 8/179.
After the changeover break the BRNMCA opened with G Yandle, who ended up bowling seven maiden overs out of 18 overs and of those seven maidens, he bowled six out of his first seven overs.
A Shearing, who was bowling from the other end, benefited from Shearing’s bowling and getting the first two wickets, and BRNMCA had them 2/32.
They had a couple of partnerships in the mid 30s then wickets fell at regular intervals until they passed our score in the 55th over and then went on to make 9/215.
BRNMCA bowlers doing well were G.Yandle 3/51, A Shearing 2/24, and in those two wickets he picked up a former Western Australia country side captain G Dehring for three runs and once again Hooper, who came into the side only on Monday, and picked up 3/35 on Tuesday.
At the end of Tuesday BRNMCA said goodbye to O Hayes-Thompson, who had to leave for holidays and T Elsegood who had to leave for work.
Thursday: Upper Great Southern at Charles Veryard Reserve
After a day off to recuperate, once again, Sedgewick lost the toss and BRNMCA were put into the field once again.
They had a bit of luck when they got to 19 but then had to work hard to get the next wicket which fell at 104.
Their second opening batsmen departed for 57 and their next two batsmen put on a 144 run partnership with B George and L Hardie falling for 77 runs and B George finished unbeaten on 105 runs.
Our bowlers toiled hard none more so then G Yandle who had bowled well all week.
On Thursday he put in another courageous stint, 20 overs going for 0/65.
He again bowled another 5 maidens.
J Lynn came down to Perth and joined the team Thursday morning, with P Jones and S Bald, to fill in for those that had departed.
Lynn took 2/69 off 16 overs, D Hayes-Thompson took 1/18 off 3 and A Shearing 1/85 off 12 overs.
UPGS finished with 4/307.
Then BRNMCA went out to climb the mountain of runs, and got their best start for the week with K James and S Yandle getting things off to an opening stand of 39 runs.
They got 17 and 25 respectively.
Our next best scorers were D Hayes-Thompson with 26 runs, another fine effort with the bat after his effort with the ball.
G Yandle topped scored with 35 runs and S Bald finished with 18 runs not out.
Sunday: Albany at Charles Veryard Reserve
At the fifth and the final game for the week the toss was lost once again, despite captain Sedgewick saying he had been practicing for good results.
After a very tiring week for the bowlers, the game began with Albany openers putting on a 142 run partnership.
But BRNMCA got their number three batsmen for a golden duck, and this put W Hooper on a hat trick, which was the second time this week that one of the BRNMCA bowlers had the chance for a hat trick.
It was for no joy and their next couple of batsmen put on small partnership then they had 60 and a 75 run partnerships to finally amass a score of 6/317 with their openers being the best.
BRNMCA’s bowlers toiled very hard, and it’s likely the first couple of days had sapped them of a lot of their energy.
The best of the bowling came from J Lynn 3/72 off 14 overs, W Hooper 2/66 off 20 overs and G Yandle 1/92 off 16 overs.
It must also be noted that Yandle bowled 82 overs.
BRNMCA’s batsmen tried their best, but their only good partnership was with S Bald and D Alberti who put on 61 runs for the fourth wicket, before eventually BRNMCA were all out for 170.
Some of the return catches by the bowlers were exceptional.
Our top scorers were S Bald (45) D Alberti (24) and M Davis who came into the side that day with 19 runs.
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