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Moments in history - Eighth Eleven and Sunday Turf

TWO MOMENTS IN HISTORY FOR THE MIGHTY VALLEY

Moonee Valley Cricket Club achieved two firsts at the weekend – our Eighth Eleven took to the field for the first time, and our Thirds played the first-ever permanent Sunday home fixture in the MMVCA.

It just shows how progressive and innovative our Moonee Valley Cricket Club is.

Moreland Moonee Valley Cricket Association president Brett Pallini did us the honor of tossing the coin to mark the commencement of the Thirds match, and our captain Dino Sapuppo correctly called and opted to bat.

Brett was our guest at the start of the match, along with fellow executive members Matt Cervetto and Chris Leopold.

The MMVCA executive was instrumental in backing our Club’s proposal to transfer our Thirds from matting to turf, and to play our home games permanently on Sundays on the Ormond Park table. Their strong support helped ensure the other clubs voted in favor of the proposal.

While MMVCA sides have played Sunday fixtures before, they have been on a temporary basis when grounds have been out of commission. SapuppoDino06-07 5cm

Moonee Valley Cricket Club has broken new ground by opting to play all our Thirds home games on Sundays, and a number of other clubs have now indicated they will pursue similar options next season.

The MMVCA is able to use Moonee Valley as an example of what innovative and forward-thinking clubs can do if they wish to expand the turf cricket competition.

We played Saturday away games for our first two one-day matches, and Round 3 was our first at home in the new time slot.

Moonee Valley’s team for the historic fixture was Dino Sapuppo (captain) - left; Dale Hadfield, Tom King, Paul Nicol, John Talone, Mark Cini, Julian Madigan, Joshua Maginness, Shane Williams, Dean Jukic and Peter Smith.

And our Eighths was in esteemed company on the Saturday when they played their first round, with Moonee Valley legend Ian Denny pulling on the whites to accompany captain Brett Curran and ensure we had 11 men on the field.

Our decision to go to an Eighth senior side was made after pressure of numbers at training, and the North West Cricket Association held open a spot for us for a couple of weeks as we organised our roster and entered the fray for Round 3 of the season. 05-06Curran Brett 5cm

Our players and officials, talking around cricket circles over the past couple of weeks, have received incredulous feedback from other clubs struggling to put two and three teams on the park when we proudly tell them that we’ve got eight senior teams.

They just can’t comprehend how we can have a roster of 88 players each week and the necessary ‘extras’ to give us a bit of flexibility.

Granted, it’s a major logistical exercise come selection night, but we at Moonee Valley regard it as a wonderful position to be in.

We’ve got Dads coming back to cricket, plenty of spots for our up-and-coming juniors, and teams and time slots to give our seasoned players plenty of options of where and when to play.

We fell just 23 runs short in the historic first match for our Eighth Eleven, compiling 137 in chasing the 8/162 compiled by Roxburgh Park’s Thirds.

Our history-making team was Brett Curran (captain) - right; Paul Hobbs, Dean Lawson, Alan Harry, Ian Denny, Vivek Raja Babu, Allan Cumming, Ben Coote, Jeff Lewis, Jake de Niese and John Casagranda, with Phil Coote as 12th man.

Scorecard:

Vivek Raja Babu                        c                        43
John Casagranda                       b                        10
Dean Lawson                            b                        15
Alan Harry                              c                        32
Paul Hobbs                                b                        11
Ian Denny                                  c                        8
Jeff Lewis                               c                        4
Brett Curran                             no                        2
Ben Coote                                 run out                 0
Allan Cumming                          b                         3
Jake de Niese                          run out                 2
Extras (1nb, 2w, 1b, 3lb)                                      7
Total                                                                137

Bowling:                   O         M                     W                     R
Jeff Lewis               6           0                      1                    20
Ian Denny                 5           0                      1                      8
John Casagranda      3          0                      2                    14
Paul Hobbs              5          0                      0                    20
Brett Curran             4          1                      1                      9
Ben Coote                 3         0                      1                    16
Dean Lawson            4         0                      0                    35
Jake de Niese          2         1                      2                    20
Alan Harry                2         0                      1                    10

Catches: Hobbs 2, Lawson, Cumming, de Niese, Curran.

23/10/06

October 23, 2006

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