By Daniel Redfern

The Astute Financial Port Douglas Mud Crabs travelled down to Cairns to take on the Mulgrave Toads in the final of the one day games for the year before this week’s one day grand final.

After Captain Luca won the toss and electing to bat  things didn’t start to well loosing Harris with the score of 5. King entered and joined Benny Shrimpton at the crease and the two set of to get the Muddies back on track before King was trapped in front LBW for 21 score at 2/43.

Benny was the next to go making 27 score at 3/69. From here on was not good news for the Crabs loosing there last 7 wickets for just 30 runs and being all out for just 99. Hopefully a good wakeup call before this week’s Granny.

With just 99 on the board, the bowling and fielding obviously needed to be tight. Luca and Benny V opened the bowling and it wasn’t long before Luca produced a gem to remove the Toads batsman.

A bit of a partnership then came along for the Toads with the score at 1/69. What happened next is something me personally has never played in before. Something needed to happen and happen quick. Harris and Redfern were bought onto the attack and the two worked on steadying the ship. Between the two they produced four much needed wickets before Benny V and Luca came back on and destroyed the Toads tail rolling them for 88.

The Toads lost their last 9 wickets for just 19 runs and Luca at one stage was on a hat-trick and  decided to bowl a wide for his hat-trick ball.

A fantastic win by the lads on a very hot and sticky day.

Best of the bowlers for the crabs were, Dan Harris 4 overs 1-8, Mr V 5 overs 1-11, D Redfern 6 overs 3-14 and the best of the bowlers was by far the Skipper Adam Lucas 6 overs 5-23.

This week see’s the Astute Financial Mud Crabs take on their arch rival the Mulgrave Punjabs in the one day grand final. So if you have nothing to do this Sunday come down and support your local cricket club in what will be a cracker of a grand final.