Our excellent Mercantile debut

Moonee Valley's excellent Mercantile debut  

Moonee Valley Thirds won first-up in our Mercantile Cricket Association debut. Our team was (L-R) - Back: Bill Barber, Ben Thomas,
Pardeep Singh, George Loh, Adam Patchell, captain Jesse Nankivell-Sandor and Mitchell Evans. Front: Jacob de Niese,
Lou Raffaele, Daniel Comande and Heath Webb-Johnson.

Moonee Valley made an excellent debut in the Mercantile Cricket Association in Round 1, with a convincing win over Bentleigh.
Playing in Mercantile's B Grade for the October 6 fixture, Moonee Valley set the stage with an innings of 9/207, on the back of 95 from Lou Raffaele and 41 from Valley debutant Bill Barber.
At Bentleigh's picturesque ground, we got the home team all out for 147, with teen leg spinner Daniel Comande at times unplayable for four wickets, and another former Valley junior Mitchell Evans in complete control behind the stumps.
The Moonee Valley committee made the decision to move our third and fourth turf teams to Mercantile this season because the VTCA couldn't give us what we want.
We want our Thirds to play two-day cricket, and the VTCA could only accommodate our Sunday team in a one-day grade.
Mercantile is however able to give us our preferred option - Sunday home games and mainly-Saturday away games.
Our we've earmarked our Fifths as a youth development team, with life member and past president Darren Nagle to lead and mentor younger players on turf. Many of these young men play juniors on Sunday mornings and finish at 11.45, and the VTCA did not accede to our request to vary its Sunday turf start team to enable us to get to the game.
Mercantile was able to help, and agreed to 12.45 start times for our games when juniors are playing, and 1pm starts when we have to travel longer distances.
The Fifths had a bye in Week 1.

Mitchell Evans (left) was in great form behind the stumps, and also showed excellent technique with the bat.