U13 Storm were the sole team to make the grand finals this year when they played against Flinders Jade.
We lost the toss and Flinders chose to bat which was great because we were keen to bowl. A superb bowling and fielding effort from all players saw us restrict a classy Flinders batting team to 5/132. Lilly Baker bowled a beautiful delivery to get one of the openers early, Ethan Slaney finished off with some excellent bowling at the death taking 3 wickets, through a catch to Andy Kelly and also clean bowling 2 batsmen in the last over. A run out on the final ball of the innings from a throw in the deep by Finn Mayo and collected by Ethan was a nice way to finish the Flinders innings.
Finn and Harry Caspers started well, slow and steady as planned. The bowling from Flinders was excellent but at the halfway mark at drinks we were 0/54 with a few retired batsmen back in the shed (Flinders had been 1/47 at their drinks break). Unfortunately the drinks break broke our momentum a little and for the following few overs it was tough to get runs. At the 20 over mark the message went out that it was time to get going. The players responded but as a result the wickets started to fall. It came down to the last over needing 14 off it with 1 wicket in hand but unfortunately we fell just 12 runs short. Top scorer was Ethan 27*, Mack Frey got us back in the game with a superb knock of 17 off 16, Finn 15, Tom Harmer (c) 14, Luke Lee 13, & Harry 11.
These great bunch of players did the club very proud today. They gave their best and were very gracious in defeat, accepting their runners up medals with pride. Brian Lee and I are proud to be their coaches no more so when the umpire went out of his way to make a speech at the presentation about how both teams played in a highly competitive way but more importantly played the game in the Spirit of Cricket.
Congratulations to Flinders Jade, we simply got beaten by a better team on the day. Thanks to all the TNT supporters who came down to support us, including some very proud grandparents. The support really lifted the team, I’m pretty sure we outnumbered Flinders! A massive thanks also to Deon Baker for scoring.
