The 4ths travelled to Dobson Reserve to take on Sunshine YCW, losing the toss and being sent into the field.

With Cody Jones and Ray Kuffer opening the bowling they took time to find their radars, but were not being punished with their waywardness on the scoreboard. The deadlock was finally broken by Daniel Nguyen (2/25 from 7) with one of the opening batsmen finally perishing after getting a couple of lives earlier. Again the YCW batsmen were failing to toil on anything loose, mistiming or hitting straight to the fielders. Heath Owen (1/1) struck with a bizarre stumping\bowled decision, which was funnily enough put into the book as a stumping… Was the ball taken in front of the wickets? Not according to the square-leg umpire and the dangerous YCW batsmen was sent back to the pavilion. Then some good overs from the Barkly St slow bowlers really put pressure on the YCW batsmen with the run rate really drying up. Jones 1/14 – 6), Kuffer 1/16 – 6).

Something had to give and unfortunately it was in the form of an over from the new 4ths captain Anthony Koesasi, that was described as ‘loose’ which was clearly YCWs best over of their innings. A quick bowling change saw Barkly St get back on top, with both openers returning to snare a wicket each in the final overs, not before Woodsy got taken to the cleaners by a clean hitting middle-order batsmen. Even with that late flurry at Woodsys’ expense, YCW could only manage 5-126 off their 35 overs, a very attainable target.

Batting openers Curnow and Maeder put together a fantastic opening stand, with both batsmen scoring freely when the bowling was loose. Their stand finally broken on 94 when Al (35) tried one too many big swings against the young YCW slow bowlers and flayed an edge to slip. Curnow (47) followed a few overs later, getting his off stump removed by YCWs best bowler for the day with a good full inswinger. But the damage had already been done for YCW with Heath Owen and Daniel Nguyen (13) at the crease needing only a further 30-odd runs with 10 overs remaining and plenty of wickets in hand. Daniel holed out late in the piece with only a few runs remaining with Heath (10n.o) steering the one-day ship home for a great start to the season with 6 overs to spare and wickets in the shed.

Everyone put in when it was needed for a real team effort which was pleasing to see, especially as we were a man short, here’s hoping they can continue that form deep into the season. Go Steeters!