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Tuesday 08 December
Atherton no match for Muddies
The Court House Hotel Port Douglas Mudcrabs B Grade side played Atherton in the second One Dayer of the season at Cazaly's Stadium where both sides were excited about playing on the best ground in the Cairns Cricket Competition. Unfortunately when the teams arrived they found an under prepared pitch which played havoc in the afternoon when Atherton were batting.
Port Douglas won the toss and elected to bat. The Muddies usual opening bowler Dale Arnell was given the chance by Captain Josh McConnell to become the One Day opening batsmen when regular opener Rhys Felmingham was out with an injured back. This proved to be an inspired decision as Arnell set about destroying Atherton despite some good early wind assisted swing bowling. Some early catches were dropped in the Atherton the slips cordon. Atherton's Lloyd struck in the ninth over removing McConnell for 12.
Nathan King came in at number three and built a 44 run partnership with Arnell before King was caught at mid-on for 11. With Arnell on 38 Sammy Evans batting at number four, received a great ball from the young Mitchell Steel from the Atherton side and was bowled for 1 with Arnell still pushing forward on 40.
Keith Taylor then strode to the wicket looking for solid knock after receiving a big hit to the head last week which resulted in 11 stitches. It was innings from a golden age! Not once did Taylor give a chance to the opposition and used every shot in the training manual to glide his way along to 40 runs before anyone had noticed. Arnell had also been compiling the runs and after hitting a big four to bring up his fifty in the 26 over he moved on with even more force hitting three fours and two 2's in one over taking him very close to his maiden century for the Muddies. Along with Arnell's powerful hitting, a lot of patience was shown as he realised he had a job to do opening the batting, and this he did with ease passing his 100 in the 38 over with a memorable on-drive.
Once Arnell was past his hundred, he opened up the shoulders for a couple of big fours before being caught on 113.
Taylor was joined by Freyling followed very quickly by Armour with 5 overs to go and the pair set about adding more runs to the already formidable tally. In the last 5 overs the pair put on 26 runs with Keith Taylor smashing a huge six to bring up his well deserved 50 after a fine innings.
Port Douglas had made 5 for 226 when the fifty overs were completed, leaving a hard run chase for Atherton.
After the change of innings Port came out firing on all cylinders determined to hold the early catches and add to the pressure of chasing 227. With the fields switched on it was only two and half overs before, 'Man of the match', Dale Arnell got the edge of Nasser's bat and Delaney took a screamer of a catch at second slip. After a lovely maiden from Schiesser, Arnell took his second wicket clean bowling the other opening batter. Arnell finished 2 for 13 of five overs.
Matt Schiesser as always was working hard into the wind and bowled 4 maidens in his 10 over spell setting up what was to be a quick finish for the Atherton innings. Darryl Mison took over Arnell and bowled four beautiful tight overs with out a run which lead to him picking three well deserved wickets and finishing with 3 for 18 off eight overs. Gary Maitland also took the bull by the horns when he came on and took 3 wickets after bowling good line and length and finished with 3 for 13 off his five overs.
The Court House Hotel Mudcrabs won the game by 163 runs bowling Atherton out in the 29th over.
Next week Port travels to Griffiths Park No.2 to taken on top of ladder Rovers in the third One Dayer starting at 10am on the 13th December.....Go Muddies !
