A third straight win of the toss saw Muddies C Grade choose to bat at home on Sunday morning against United in very warm conditions on a pitch that looked hard, dry and flat.

Muddies' captain, Steve Doble said there was good reason behind his decision.

“I looked at the pitch on Saturday and noticed the abundance of grass runners and thought it may offer some grip for the ball to deviate from. But with a stronger line up and two losses after bowling first, I thought we had better try and reverse our fortunes.” 

After four soft dismissals and the score at 4/28 off eleven overs, it again looked like a plan gone wrong as the batsmen found it difficult to drive with both sideways movement off the pitch and a variable, sometimes popping, bounce resulting in poor shot selection. This provided United with some easy catching practice.

Matt Coombe came to the crease and mitigated the difficult bowling with keen application, moving early and smothering the ball with bat and pad.

At the other end Damien Darlington looked like a suited partner before offering another simple catch with the team score at 5/43.

Moving down from B Grade, Sheldon Walz worked hard at the crease with Coombe, both steadying the ship and certainly giving the Muddies a chance to redeem a total closer to three figures, contributing a partnership of 39 in 11 overs to be 6/82 at the fall of Walz, caught for 16.

Batting in his debut innings for the Muddies, Vik Chandra was quick to offer support to Coombe (29) who fell shortly after to what finally was a hard catch for Mareeba, 7/94.

Troy Hilditch was to be commended for attending after some devastating family news and he showed respect to the bowlers and conditions, assisting with seven.

Another North Indian Aussie, Aryan Singh (11), walked to the crease to join Chandra and the two were very controlled, assisting one another to concentrate whilst taking the total to a respectable 9/128.

A few words were mentioned to Chandra that his number 11 partner, Bronson Ryan, was not likely to “stick around” in defence, although his offence may well see a quick fired 30 or so and that is exactly what happened.

Chandra worked hard in defence and offered the strike to Ryan who contributed 37 in the 45 run partnership and was the only Muddie not caught.

Chandra remained not out on a fantastic stint at the crease with 21, after entering at 6/82.

Muddies, all out 173, had five overs to bowl so they went on the all out attack to the United openers who were merely looking to survive. Off the last ball of the fifth over Darlington took a close in simple chance off Ryan.

At 1/7 United will have a tough task on an outfield 20-30% slower than a mere fortnight ago. 

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