Our Third Eleven premiership celebrations

OUR THIRD ELEVEN PREMIERSHIP CELEBRATIONS

Moonee Valley won its second Mercantile flag in two seasons when the Thirds had a comprehensive win at home over National on March 26.
We had gone close so many times after we moved our third and fourth teams to the Mercantile Cricket Association in 2013/14, but now we've opened the floodgates.
It was our first Third Eleven premiership since 1998/99, when we were still playing in the Moreland-Moonee Valley C Mats competition.
At right: The Premiers with their flag and shield: L-R. back - Sukhi Jaiswal, Sunil Bhandari, Parminder Singh, Vinnie Singh, Geoff McKeown, Dean Jukic, Mark Gauci, Sunny Singh, Manthan Nicholas, Bede Gannon and Jim Polonidis. Front - Sunny Sharma and Tom Janetzki.
Our Thirds had played consistently for much of the season to finish second on the ladder, and comfortably accounted for Emerald Hill in the semi.
We were not expecting to get a home Grand Final, but didn't look a gift horse in the mouth when fourth-placed National knocked off the top team in the other semi.
Come the big day we were always in the hunt, but National ground it out to be 5/88. Then in the blink of an eye they were all out on that score.
National lost 5/0 off seven balls. Dean Jukic took a sharp caught-and-bowled off the fifth ball of his fifth over, then Sunil Bhandari took four wickets in five balls.
Earth-shattering for National.
They worked steadily away to restrict Moonee Valley when we batted, and at 4/57 they had some belief that the could pull something off. But once the target inched down down to 28, Sukhi Jaiswal and Tom Janetzki threw off the shackles. Five fours between them over a couple of overs, and we reeled in the target with 19 overs to spare. Premiership secured!
**Watch this space for more photos and a full premiership match report - now CLICK HERE.