A GRADE – Delight turned to Misery for Moe at Churchill
CHURCHILL (1st 40pts) vs (3rd 39pts) MOE
CHURCHILL 1ST INNING – 10/104 (55.2)
Moe won the toss, bowled and started unbelievably. Royce Colgrave (3/22) & Clint Taylor (1/24) reduced the Cobras to 4/28 followed by Callum Grant picking up the wicket of danger man John Keighran (11) lbw from a missed full toss that landed in the batsman’s pad. Rob Phoenix (1/10) & Riley Baldi (1/7) picked up a scalp each, the latter with a wonderful diving catch off his own bowling. Grant (3/17) picked up 2 more wickets and Ash Savige got a run out to have the hosts all out for 103. Whykes (45) & Keighran were the only ones to reach double figures. Moe also put down six catches but weren’t really made to pay for their errors.
MOE 1ST INNING – 10/66 (38.3)
Riley Baldi opened his account with a cracking 6 over cover as he and Noah Kane quickly raced the score to 0/23. The innings then fell in a heap, with Baldi (15), Kane (6), Robinson (1), Phoenix (3), Spiteri (3) & debutant Jesse Pheeney 
all dismissed in the space of 9 runs to reduce Moe to 6/32. Grant & Savige survived til stumps (6/38 overnight) but the collapse continued on Sunday morning. Grant (
fell in the 4th over of the day, Savige (6) in the 5th & Taylor in the 7th to take the collapse to 9/25 and team total 9 down for just 48 runs. The final partnership saw the 2nd biggest of the innings with 18 runs in the space of 8 overs, Colgrave (17 off 42) with the runs scored but also copped a ball to the face along the way as per previous post, before chopping on to be last man out. Blunt (1* off 16) was not out as Moe found themselves dismissed for just 66, trailing by 38 runs. Holt (4/29), Williams (2/4), Keighran (2/7) & Warr (2/9) picked up the wickets.
CHURCHILL 2ND INNING – 4/69
Churchill came out with a game plan to attack to rack up a score to potentially chase an outright to guarantee what was now already a highly probable home final. Velardi (15), Harvey (19) & Kelly (19) all got starts, Grant another 3 wickets & Taylor one scalp before the game was called at the lunch break with an outright result unlikely in the remaining time.
SUMMARY
The losses to Morwell & Churchill over the past two weeks have all but cost the Lions a home final with the only way to regain that being a highly unlikely outright win vs Raiders and a result seeing one of Morwell & Churchill getting zero points (can’t be a draw or a reverse outright). That’s an unrealistic scenario given both Moe’s current form and Raiders upwards trend in form beating leaders Churchill & Morwell, and drawn Latrobe in their 3 two-day matches to date, which have also included formidable totals of 277 & 5d/285. Moe will need to return to form urgently to have any chance at a result and regain confidence heading into finals.
C GRADE – MORWELL VS MOE.
MORWELL MAKE IT 8-0 V MOE TO DENT MOE’S FINALS HOPES
Moe also sent the opposition in to bat in the 3rd grade match. Morwell looked to make it 8-0 in the home & away across the senior grades having won twice in A Grade, three times in B Grade and twice prior in C Grade.
Wickets fell at 1/5, 2/22, 3/44 & 4/65 in an even contest to that point. Kays knock of 42* retired hurt propelled the Tigers to a score of 6/155 from their 40 overs. Kays was supported by starts from B.Williams (29), Francis (18), M.Williams (16) & 18 extras. Garry Edwards (2/22) was the only multiple wicket taker with Hayden Edwards, Ibi Glibanovic, Ron Whitney & Aiden Savage all collecting one scalp.
Chris De Vent & Hayden Edwards batted 31 of the 40 overs until the first loss of Edwards (34) at 1/84. Great time at the wicket for the youngster whilst the veteran De Vent supported him whilst showing his own batting prowess. The only negative was that the equation at time of dismissal had got out to 72 required from 54 balls with no big hitters in the lineup. Moroney (5) & Murphy (3) fell to reduce the Lions to 3/94 with just over 6 overs to go. Whitney (13) & De Vent (59) added 23 off the next 4 overs before the Lions lost 4/2 in the closing couple of overs, 7/121 from their 40, going down by 34 runs. Kumar the only multiple wicket taker in an innings that featured 3 run outs. The loss leaves Moe’s finals hopes heavily damaged. Two games left and now certainly two wins required, and even then, still may require other results to go their way.
