Douglas Muddies B Grade had a solid win against Mulgrave Punjabi at Fuller Park at the weekend, winning 9/130 to 114.

Captain Vik won the toss and sent the Muddies in to bat with the expectation of setting a big target to bowl to. Losing Simeon Migliorenza for 0 in the second over of the day was a slight dampener after his unbeaten half ton last game.

Logan Marsh joined Ben Gaske at the crease with both batsmen setting about posting a good score. Ben worked the ball around allowing Logan to score somewhat freely on a very thick and slow outfield. They took the partnership to 39 before Logan lost his wicket for 21 by popping a catch to the slow-footed diving mid-wicket fieldsmen. Ethan McCullough and Ben batted comfortably but found the scoring difficult, but safely saw the Muddies reach 2-55 at drinks.

With wickets in hand and 17 overs left to bat, the Muddies looked to increase the scoring rate, hopefully achieving a target of 150. Ethan opened his arms after drinks and finally started finding the gaps, finding the going easier. Ben (27) joined Ethan in hitting the gaps, but pushed one too hard and was caught with the score on 73. Ethan (21) then joined Ben in the sheds with the score 4 - 78.

Hayden and Ben Vik were at the crease, but this was short lived with V being bowled for a fourth ball duck. Buckets then made a quick 14 off 18 balls, Hayden departed for 3 on 91, Butterss went for a golden duck on 91, and Kaiden was run out for 0 on 91. Something must have surrounded the score on 91 that day. Buckets was dismissed for 14, leaving Muddies 9 down with just over three overs remaining.

Adam ‘Slugger’ Lucas and Dave ‘straight arm’ Johnson then put on 30 runs in the last three overs, with Luco hitting a cracking 21 off 14 and Dave 6 off 9, showing the higher batters a thing or to. With this last effort, Muddies reached 9 – 130 off their allotted overs. With three batters each making 21, and three wickets lost with the score on 91, one can’t help but feel something eerie was surrounding those numbers.

Following on from their batting stint to capitalise on their momentum, Dave and Luco opened the bowling. This time the fortunes were reversed, with DJ picking up two early wickets, leaving Mulgrave at 2 – 30 at the end of the first 10 overs. Luco bowled very well, but without luck again. Kaiden and Jordan then took up the attack, with Butterss bowling the batter with his first ball. This was Jordan’s only wicket for the match, but not without finding the edge multiple times and dropping a simple as you like caught and bowled.

Kaiden bowled a miserly spell, finding lots of edges that didn’t carry, finishing at 0 – 12 off 6 overs. At the end of 21 overs, Punjabi were sitting comfortably at 3 – 63, needing only 62 runs off 84 balls with 7 wickets in hand for the win. D’Addona and Vikionkorpi partnered for the second time, reaping much more success than their batting effort.

Bowling the next 10 overs, Hayden picked up 2 wickets for 20 runs, and V picked up 3 for 20, leaving Mulgrave reeling at 8 – 107 at 31 overs. Back over to Luco and Dave, Luco bowled the 32nd over for only 2 runs, putting the pressure on the score quickly. This provided the platform for Dave to pick up the last two wickets in the 33rd over, clean bowling both batters with a change of pace, finishing with 4 – 21 off 5.4 overs; Muddies winning by 17 runs with 2.2 overs to spare.

It was a great all round team performance, with everybody contributing with either bat, ball or in the field. There were some momentary lapses, but the consistent, high level effort in the field was the best to date which is really encouraging coming into the business end of the season.

This week’s game is against North’s at Griffiths Park, Cairns starting at 8:30 Sunday.