The Douglas Muddies B Grade team had a scrappy two-day game win at home against Barron River finishing last weekend.

Presumably watching way too much of England batting, Barron, sitting sixth at the time, managed to score a miserly 10 for 53 off 44 overs. From the outset, Barron looked as if they had no intentions of ever trying to win the game. They seemingly were just playing for the draw, which made for some very boring cricket. They managed to be 9 for 49 at the end of a rain affected day one.

Jordan Butterss revelled in the patchy weather conditions, picking up four wickets on day one and claiming his fifth for his first five wicket haul for B grade, netting 5 for 14 off 8.1 overs. Kaiden Sorensen (3 for 11) and Adam Lucas (2 for 7) also chimed in with wickets in great bowling performances.

Batting with a significantly slower outfield, the Muddies batters worked hard to get runs, as a normal boundary shot for four was pulling up considerably shorter with the batters scrambling through for a single. Ben Gaske batted well early before being gunned leg before on a wide legside delivery for 15.

D’Addona, Vikionkorpi and Butterss all departed cheaply to be 4 for 40. Nathan Taig scored a quick 19 before being bowled with Kaiden at the crease; and Daniel Harris went aerial to push the score past the required 54 for first innings victory, before holding out for 12. Kaiden (11) was dismissed for the first time this season, finally getting a batting average.  Ethan McCullough top scored with 25, and the tail wagged to take the score to 122, all out.

Having just over an hour and a half to bowl the second innings at Barron, the Muddies were looking for quick wickets to try and force an outright.  But once again, Barron played the plonking game, not looking to score or take any bonus points out of the game.

Adam Lucas bowled a fiery spell, trying to force Barron to play, but they ducked and weaved to avoid playing and only managed to hit the balls that were on the stumps. Dave Johnson again bowled well without luck, but Kaiden, Deep and Hayden all picked up one wicket to have Barron 3 for 57 off 29 overs at the end of play. Barron managed 13 for 110 off 73 for the match, which was really disappointing to play against.

Playing at home should be an advantage where you look to take outright wins, but when the outfield is so long that it makes scoring quickly near impossible, it makes you wonder why more is not being done by the contracted lawn keepers to help out their home side. The ridiculous length of the grass prevents good quality cricket from being played and forces poor shot selection, resulting in less points being accumulated because runs are hard to come by. Maybe something good will happen with the appointment of the local council from next year.

B grade travel to Innisfail for the last two day game before Christmas starting this Sunday afternoon.