The Court House Hotel Port Douglas Mudcrabs 2nd Grade team finally played their first game of cricket this season in the T20 competition at Fretwell Park, which was close to being called off due to some heavy rain on Friday and a very boggy outfield.

Club Captain Nathan King won his first toss of the season against Mulgrave in the first game and elected to bowl and with a wicket off the first ball of the third over to new recruit Ben Vikionkorpi things were looking good for the Muddies in the mud!

Unfortunately another wicked was a long way off with a couple of hard high catches going down and a missed stumping off Sheldon Walz who bowled a beautiful spell for his 4 overs finishing with 1 for 25 which should have seen him have 3 wickets.  Vikionkorpi also bowled beautifully at the top order and finished with 2 for 21 off his 4 overs.

With a few lucky or well placed shots, depending on which team you are going for helped Mulgrave batsmen Reid and Carman put on a healthy partnership which then allowed the following batsmen in Stanton and Kendrick to have a swing and put on a nice total of 129 for 4 wickets off their 20 overs.

Opening batsmen for Port Douglas Shane Palmer and Josh McConnell went out with 5 or 6 runs an over in mind to chase down Mulgraves good total.  Palmer faced the first ball of the innings and saw off the first few delivers from the off-spin of Hilton until he tickled a nice ball around the corner for one.

McConnell padded away his first deliver and then let rip with a well timed long off drive for six which was hopefully to set the scene for a good run chase. Palmer and McConnell put on a good partnership for the first wicket of 22 before McConnell miss hit a lofted off drive which went straight down the throat of the Mulgrave fielder at mid off.  Matt Mitchell came and went with a quick run out off his first ball when coming back for the second run.

This brought Skipper King to the crease to join a well set Palmer and they started to put a partnership together.  Palmer was caught attempting another big six just like the one he had hit the ball before.

Daniel Harris also came and went pretty quickly but managed a nice big six before getting caught.  Keithy 'Golden Arm' Taylor joined King and set about turning the strike over and turning singles into twos.  After a partnership of 20 King, was judged LBW for 15 and was quickly followed by Taylor 17 after being caught.  Tony Gooding had a last ditch effort to get the runs but was bowled for 8 with only 2 balls to go after going for another big hit.  After a great fight the Muddies went down to Mulgrave by 37 runs.

The second T20 game for the day saw Port Douglas take on Atherton and with another win of the toss by King, Port were batting with the same opening pair in Palmer and McConnell but in the second over with the score on 9, McConnell tried to make something of a good ball and was bowled for 3.  Gooding and King followed McConnell very quickly leaving the Muddies struggling at 3 and 1.

Harris joined the very stable Palmer at the crease and had a great partnership of 21 before Harris was caught on the mid-wicket boundary for 18.  Palmer put on another 18 hard running runs with Taylor before he held out to be caught on 22.

With a few overs remaining Kendal Samkin, Walz, Mison and Doble all tried valiantly to lift the run total with not much success and when the 20 overs were completed the Muddies finished on 8 for 82.

Ben Vikionkorpi and Shane Palmer opened the bowling again and bowled very straight line and length and again there were few lucky shots to the openers and few fielders a little slow moving in the field helped this.

In the third over Vikionkorpi picked up his first wicket and finished his spell of bowling at 4 overs 1 for 18. Off-spinner Sheldon Walz playing in his first 2nd grade games for the Muddies bowled a beautiful line and length and was really troubling the batters from Atherton which showed when they went for a couple of big hits which were not there and were bowled with great skill.  Walz finished his 4 overs with 2 for 16.

Atherton ended up cruising past the Muddies total in the 16th over with 3 wickets down winning the game by 7 wickets.

The Port Douglas Mudcrabs 2nd Grade team play their first 2 day game on the 7th of November at innisfail with the 3rd Grade team playing their second 50 over game on the 31 October at Crathern Park.