* Muddies cricketer Ethan McCullough gives his view of all the action on Saturday.

THE Astute financial Muddies travelled down to Griffith Park in Cairns to try and continue their recent winning streak with two 20/20 matches against North’s and Mulgrave Punjabi.

A couple of forced changes with Benny Shrimpton away for U/21 rep cricket and Jared away at a brewers convention came the return of custard arm Cody and the big hitting Damo.

Losing the toss and being sent into the field skipper Ethan conveyed a clear and concise message to the lads that tight bowling and a good team fielding effort will win the game. Pistol Pete and Luco opened up bowling with a tight and at times unplayable line and length leaving the North’s batting line-up in a bit of trouble at 2/17 after 6 overs and when Keel caused a run out off his own bowling things were looking up for the Muddies. North’s batsmen dug in deep through the middle overs scoring a little bit more freely with the change of bowlers until the 48 run stand was stopped in its track by Kaiden with good fielding and terrible running between the wickets resulting on another run out.

The fielding was infectious with some great diving saves and two more run outs , Ethan and Kaiden, in the final overs compounded with some tidy bowling at the death restricting North’s to 87.

The odd couple openers of Randall and Damo set out to establish a good platform to chase down the total, Randal started slowly and struggled to rotate the strike over but when Damo got to face the bowling the results were imminent smashing two boundaries off his first three balls. North’s reigned in their bowling changing the length and picking up both openers in quick succession leaving the muddies chasing 56 runs off 66 balls. Gooch ‘Jesse Ryder’ was joined by Evans at the crease and the plan was simple score runs quickly, and that they did.

Ryder turned the strike over nicely for The Big Show unleash a couple of 6’s including a monster clearing the outer fence and into the gutter in a short lived cameo of 20 runs of 9 balls. 4 wickets in 3 overs brought Simon Cody out to the middle, after Gary Buckets was out for his first golden duck in his career, needing 25 runs and batting with the tail Cody took charge and hit some elegant shots to top score and close out the match hitting the winning runs with 21 not out and leaving some real selection headaches for next week. Astute financial Muddies winning by 3 wickets with 13 balls to spare North’s 8/87 (Lucas 2/15, Smith 1/4) def by Muddies 7/90 (Cody 21*, Evans 20,).

The second match was the saw a one day grand-final rematch from last year against fierce rivals Mulgrave Punjabi in a highly anticipated match for the Muddies to exact a bit of revenge after last year’s loss. Skipper Ethan lost the coin toss again, maybe some extra tossing practice is needed, the Muddies were sent back into the field with Ethan reiterating the same message as last game. Pistol Pete set the tone for the match with the first over taking a wicket maiden and things looked down from there for the Punjabi’s, up the other end Luco bowled with pace and aggression tearing apart the top order taking three wickets. A change of bowling saw no rest for the batsmen as the Sorenson brothers Kaiden and Keel toyed with the batsmen like they were playing in the backyard at home picking up five wickets between them and bowling out the Punjabi’s for a woeful score of 57.

The odd couple had a point to prove chasing down the small target, with a little bit of role reversal with Randal being the aggressor punishing the ball to all parts of Griffith Park while Damo up the other end was having a hard time finding the boundary but was more than happy to rotate the strike. Both batsmen stayed strong and chased the total down comfortably with Randal turning the clock back hitting a 6 right in front of the Muddies crowd to an almighty roar, Damo finishing the match in style bring up the victory with a 6. Muddies walking away convincing winners with 8 overs to spare Punjabi 10/57 (Kaiden 3/13, Luco 3/14, Keel 2/10, Pete 1/14) Muddies 61 (Randal 36*, Damo 19*).

This weekend is LADIES day with the Muddies B grade back in Port Douglas at the Mudpit at 1pm playing in a double header against United with C grade playing in the morning so bring your wife, girlfriend, mum, aunty or sister ;) down for some entertaining cricket and maybe a drink or 2. A big shout out to our sponsors Astute Financial, Dave’s Take Away, Hemmingway’s Brewery, Port Douglas Stationary Hub, LJ Hooker, NQ Carpet Cleaning Services, Port Douglas Dentists and the Court House Hotel for your continued support.