Meeting Fawad Ahmed at the winter comp awards

Meeting Fawad Ahmed at the winter comp

awards

Moonee Valley cricketers were given the chance to renew acquaintances with an old friend of our Club when Test aspirant Fawad Ahmed was guest speaker at the Mid Year Cricket Association awards night on September 2.

Fawad played a couple of Twenty20 games for Moonee Valley in 2010, and was seen regularly around our Club when Ihtisham Uddin and Murtaza Khaliq were pullling on the Valley whites.

He's progressed significantly since then, with Sheffield Shield titles for Victoria under his belt, a number of seasons in the Big Bash league and Test tours of England and the West Indies.

Fawad gave an entertaining presentation at the Winter Comp awards night, touching on his determination to establish himself as a top-grade cricketer after fleeing hard-line persecution in Pakistan as a result of his sport.

At the end of the presentation, Moonee Valley's Michael Ozbun, Matthew Esmore and Stephen Esmore took the chance to catch up with Fawad for a chat and a photo opportunity.

Above left: They've all proudly pulled on the whites for Moonee Valley - Test aspirant Fawad Ahmed (second from left) with L-R Michael Ozbun, Matthew Esmore and Stephen Esmore.

Matt Esmore took all before him in the winter comp, winning the Central Division Fielding Shield batting award with 345 runs at a staggering average of 86.25 - an average 30 runs better than the next-placed batsman.Matt was Mr Consistency throughout the season, scoring five centuries, a 40 and a 39 not out.

At left: A stellar season - Matt Esmore with his batting award for the MYCA Central Division and his MVP medallion - the John Hammer Award.

He also took more wickets than anyone else in the Moonee Valley Black team, with 11 at a healthy average in the pre-finals games of 22.91.

The Moonee Valley Black team under skipper Michael Ozbun finished on top of the ladder, but faltered in the semi final.

The Moonee Valley White team, captained by Shane McDonald, had a tougher season in the Inner North West Division, winning three games and finishing seventh on the ladder.

The 2017 season was Moonee Valley's fifth in the growing winter comp and second with two teams, and we're strongly committed to this standard of cricket in the off-season.

We play our home games out of Fairbairn Park in Ascot Vale, which is the home of winter cricket in the north-west.