03-04 Girls Premiership match report

The Under 14 Girls bring home the First Premiership for the Juniors.

Friday the 27^th of February 2004 should be noted as a very special day for Moonee Valley Cricket Club. That’s the day the girls won the Inaugural Under 14’s Girls Grand Final. Playing against Glenroy who had been undefeated throughout the season, we were definitely the underdogs loosing twice to them during the season. This year 11 girls signed up for the year and all those girls played in the grand final, Win, lose or draw the girls, the club and cricket are the true winners. The game is played along the lines of a 16 overs per innings /super eight competition, where batters bat in pairs for set overs and all players rotate in fielding and share the bowling.

The captain for the Grand Final side was Lisa Spagna (left) and was successful in winning the toss and inviting Glenroy to bat. Glenroy had picked eight of their best and looked very confident coming out to bat. With our best bowlers lined-up, all the girls were very keen to do their best. We have eight girls on the field at any one time, and today we started with Grace, Ellyn and Elle started on the boundary. These girls added great vocal support and I’m sure they helped the bowlers in the nervous first overs. We had a great support crew in parents, players, officials and friends barracking from the sidelines.

Lisa started the bowling and got us off to a great start with only conceding a single. Shavindhi has been the find of the year bowling her leggies and keeping the score to 0/3 off two. Hannah has been very successful in her first season taking 10 wickets for the season. Today she got amongst it by taking the first wicket of the match, bowling straight as a dye to bowl one of the Glenroy girls. Lily was next and the wickets continued to fall, another on line ball that got past their batter, Glenroy was 2/10. Chloe (another first year player) showed up many an experienced bowler by taking a great caught and bowled with her 4^th ball. At the end of the fifth over Glenroy were in a bit of trouble at 3 for 15. With a bonus of 5 runs to the fielding side per wicket, we had them at zero runs after 5 overs.

Glenroy’s best batters today seemed to be the second pair rather than the traditional openers and the two batters started to find some touch making 21 runs in four overs, despite our youngsters Amelia, Leisha and Grace probably bowled their best overs for the season. At the half way mark of the innings Glenroy had recovered and the innings was evenly poised at 3/36. Eliza Downie had done such a wonderful job as the keeper that we decided to keep her keeping for the entire match. Ellyn came on for the 10^th over and found success with her second ball – another clean bowled. Lisa came back on for her second over and was very unlucky not to get a wicket (how many coats of varnish can be missed so often)? Hannah returned and picked up another scalp with beautiful ball that cut back into leg stump. The following over, a ball hit to Lisa was returned to Lily who noted the batter had not grounded her bat and caught the Glenroy batter short of her crease for a run out. The following over Chloe bowled a beauty with her second ball – middle stump. Amelia had bowled well at training and was rewarded being given the ball for the last pressure over. She did her job and at the end of the innings Glenroy had lost 7 wickets for 85.

High drama occurred during the break when Hannah was forced to retire with crippling abdominal pains. We were all so lucky that Helen was there to look after her. She had to leave and took no further part in the match although she was the first to be contacted after the match. After a hasty rearrangement to the original batting lineup, we went out with 5 batting pairs.

First off our strongest pair Lisa and Lily (right) had four overs to wreak the havoc they have performed all year. They didn’t let us down. After four overs of delightful stroke play, the girls had amassed 27 runs for 1 wicket. (Opposition -2 /10). Elle and Shavindhi had been among the match winners in the previous final and put on a fine 15, only loosing one wicket for their three over partnership. Shavindhi played some beautiful shots in compiling her 11 runs, while Elle played a terrific game of hit and run. The girls did some magnificent backing up to steel several bonus runs. Moonee Valley was 2/42 after 7 overs (Glenroy had made 3 /27).

Eliza and Grace played the anchor role against the best Glenroy could offer. They were magnificent. Although the girls did not score many runs – far more importantly they held fast and did not loose their wickets. This was the first decisive step towards the flag. The girls made 6 runs for 0 wickets against the best. Next came the youngsters. Leisha and Amelia played the most emphatic vibrant three overs ever experienced this season. Although loosing a wicket, the girls broke even on the first over faced. The second over, Amelia carved up the bowler and hit a lovely four and a single. The third saw Leisha put on a powerful batting exhibition with a 4,1,(Amelia 1) ,4,w,4w . Leisha and Amelia had put on 17 runs in that over. Leisha finished with 0/19 and Amelia 0/7. This left us after 13 overs at 3 for 74 (Glenroy had been 5/71).

Our last pair was Chloe and Ellyn. Chloe is another newcomer that isn’t afraid to show her presence, while Ellyn would have to be the quietest member of the team – but not with the bat today.

Chloe faced the first ball without success, the second was a wide that she went after and smashed for four. Great teaming between the girls got us 8 for the over. The next one was Ellyn’s. She smashed a great hit over backward square for four that was unlucky not the go for six. Quiet thing indeed! The following and final over Ellyn hit another fine four and a single to finish. The final score was Moonee Valley 3 for 128 defeated Glenroy 7 for 100. Would you believe most of the girls lost their voices during that last half-hour of batting? The raspberry cordials flowed latter at the clubhouse.

It was a fairy-tale ending to a fantastic fun season.

Thanks Girls,

A special thanks to the parents who supported the players and got the girls to training and matches. Finally much of the season’s success is due to the terrific job done by the cool and calm assistant coach Vince Duffus.

What a team!!

Phill King