By Ben Vikionkorpi

Travelling to Griffith’s Park, Cairns at the weekend, the Astute B Muddies were looking for revenge for their last season’s Grand Final defeat at the hands of Tully in their last regular round clash.

Batting first, the Tully were dismissed for 173, and the Astute Muddies are 0-43 in reply, set to take 1st innings and claim the 2014-15 Minor Premiership.

Being away for the second week of the clash with rep coaching commitments, Ben Vikionkorpi was keen to win the toss and bowl.

However, Tully won but batted first, looking after the Astute Muddies interests. Looking to make a big impression early, Adam (Luco) Lucas and Benny Vik pushed a little too hard early and struggled to hit the lines and lengths that have given them success earlier this season.

It wasn’t until the young vego Satbir (Deep) Singh replaced BV that a break-through was made, thanks to a solid catch from Luco at short cover.

Luco was replaced with Nathan King, but Tully’s top run scorer took and liking to him so he didn’t last long.

Fresh from NZ’s defeat of Australia, the astute kiwi steam train Simon Cody took up the attack reaping immediate success, just tickling the stumps to remove their opening bat with his hooping floaters.

Simon then snared another wicket second over thanks to a well-judged catch to the newest father in the team Julian Harrold.

Gary ‘Buckets’ Postons slipped in some good, tight overs, but wasn’t overly threatening.  

It was now time for Luco to return, and he did so with venom, cannoning the ball into the XXXX Gold stumps.

Randal Smith then made a return to the bowling stocks based on the quality of his leggies at training.

But a lack of match practice resulted in a few half trackers that were duly dispatched to the boundary.

However, the half trackers nearly worked, resulted in an easy popped chance that slipped from the fielders grasp.

Over-correcting the length, Randy then bowled a straight full –toss that the batsmen swung wildly at, missed, and then was given out LBW.

At this point, Luco was steamed up and charging in, finding edges and other chances that kept getting put down.

Benny Vik then re-joined the attack and found immediate success for his first wicket, proving Madcrab Macca (Glenn MacDonald) with his first B grade catch at short leg.

Looking for the opening pair to clean up the tail, the fielding let down the bowling with multiple catches being missed all over the park.

This fired up Luco who consequently lost his rhythm and focus, unable to control his temper.

Needing to change things, Deep was reintroduced to tighten things up with Ben and he did.

Bowling in a controlled partnership, they were able to finally get the big break-through of the Tully’s number 4, thanks to the quick movements of Gaz, who got in the line of a smashed cover drive, resulting in it bouncing off Gaz and into the hands of an ungraceful Benny Vik for a caught and bowled.

This gave the momentum needed to clean up the tail, with Deep chipping in again, thanks to a sensational catch behind the stumps from Ethan ‘Peanut’ McCullough.

Ben got the other two wickets with a solid effort from Dan Harris taking the last catch, to finally dismiss Tully for 173.

This score is probably a good 30 – 50 runs more than it should be, thanks to the final number of 9 dropped catches in the innings.

Peanut McCullough and Randal Smith then had a minimum 12 overs to face until the close of play.

With careful stroke play and good temperament, the pair was able to cause 6 different bowlers to bowl what turned out to be the last 13 overs.

This was not without its’ scares though; Ethan received a full toss which he tried to pump for six, only to sky the ball and be caught; however, he didn’t realise that the square leg umpire had called no-ball for the full toss, and so was standing mid-wicket, not realising that they were now trying to run him out.

With his team mates and the C grade Astute Muddies screaming at him to run, Ethan finally made it to the bowlers end safely.

Game awareness is the key here. The Astute Muddies finished the day on 0 – 43, needing only 131 runs with 10 wickets in hand to claim 1st innings, and secure the CFN B Grade minor premiership for 2014-15. Good luck to lads this week. Go get ‘em Muddies!!