by Damian Darlington

Playing their last game for the year the Under 12s made the trip to Tolga to play Atherton 2. Captain McDowall lost the toss and the Muddies were put into bat.

Openers Curtis (4) and Deuble (13) got the team off to a great start finding gaps through, and over, the field including a six from Dueble off his third ball.

Allison looked in good form hitting a four from his first ball only to be dismissed by Davenport who was substituting for the opposition.

Cooper (1) and P.Darlington both played nicely and made it to retirement and Doble hit 13 off 12 balls before spooning a catch back to the bowler.

With renewed confidence and a new bat Stanaway retired with 4. Still proving hard to dismiss, Rayner made 3 and Kileen scored 6 before both retired taking the junior Muddies' score to 3/95 after 26 overs.

Twomey took the new ball and was unlucky not to take a wicket in the early overs. Curtis bowled superbly taking 2 wickets in 2 overs while Doble (3/10) from the other end took 3 wickets in an over including that of X.Darlington who was also substituting for Atherton.

Keeping the runs down and wickets coming, both Deuble and Kileen bowled wicket maiden overs. After drinks the Muddies knew they had to get four wickets with 20 runs to play with.

Edward kept the pressure on bowling a maiden and Stanaway took a wicket but unfortunately Atherton's best bats returned to the crease and pushed their score to 10/143 off 26 overs.