On an extremely hot Friday night the Baby Magpies traveled to Oak Park for the final game of the year. Everyone was enviously eyeing off the swimmers at the swimming pool next to the cricket ground and wishing they were the ones going down the giant slide!  

With only 7 players available, Brunswick batted first and all boys had lots of overs to bat through. Given the lack of experienced players batting, the Baby Magpies scored a very respectable 79 runs off the bat.  Top scorer was Jonas Walsh with a tidy score of 42.

Pascoe Vale started their innings very confidently (as well they might with a team of about 25 kids rotating on and off the field during their fielding stint).  However, they underestimated the determined Baby Magpies who realised that even with only 7 players playing, with some sharp fielding and a few wickets, they could take the game right up to Pascoe Vale. The first wicket was taken off Ty's bowling with Jonas contributing for a run out - racing the batsman to the wicket  and beating him to the stumps. The next wicket was taken off Sam's bowling with Jonas again contributing with a sharp stop in the field and a quick throw into Rowan at the stumps who whipped the bails off for a run out.  The next three wickets were beautiful balls bowled by Blake, Jack and Max respectively to all take out middle stump. The next three wickets were all run outs, two of  which would not be bettered at any level of the game. Both Ty and Blake threw down the stumps from 10 to 15 metres out (only slight exaggeration - it may have been more like 5 to 10 metres out).  Super effort that! The batsmen were very unlucky to come up against such crack throws!  Jonas took wicket number 9 with a great ball to bowl the batsmen out and Sammy O was definitely on his toes to make the last run out for the game with Rowan's very capable assistance.

Great bowling efforts were Jack with 3 wickets for 3 runs (if he was playing for NSW he would be playing in the Boxing Day test) and Sammy O who took 3 wickets for 7 runs  (probably as a result of his father's comments "bowl straight or I'll shoot you" - I am sure he was only joking). A special mention to Rowan who was keeper for the night and kept superbly with many run outs and minimal byes - well done! Pascoe Vale scored 58 runs off the bat (103 including 9 Brunswick wickets)

Brunswick's total score was 129 (79 plus 50 runs for the 10 wickets) to have a neat victory against Pascoe Vale.  This was a fantastic effort by an undermanned team who showed a lot of ticker when the going got tough - well done boys, it was a great effort!

Many thanks to Super coach Rory (Happy Birthday to you!) , team manager Wendy, Mal for square leg duties, Pam for scoring and all parents for our picnic.

Merry Christmas and see you all next year!

 

Ali

Baby Magpies Match Reporter!