**Congratulations England on their 5 run win in the epic first Bashes cricket match** Match report: (this is a little sketchy and I left the scorecard in the Beach road hotel) England won the toss and elected to bat, tricking the Australians with their randomly drawn batting order and the sight of Mark Cowan striding out to open the batting. Australias opening bowlers Culko & Jon Fleming both bowled quick and accurate opening spells, even more impressive for Flemo being unable to see. There was some impressive sledging from Jason Powell, and Mark Cowan hung around a good while but they still made quick inroads leaving England in the poo at 28 for 5, at that stage the Esky was the top English scorer with 5 runs. Edward Galek and Ben Pearce steadied the ship smashing quick 30s, and skipper Michael Harris also got in the act at the end also hitting an impressive 30 before retiring, allowing time for the retired batsman to come back at the death to cash in, Ed extending his score to 55 and England eventually posting a commanding score of 195 off their 22 overs. Australia started their reply slowly before Johnny Lu and Christian Stevens gave them some momentum with good knocks, although were still behind the required run rate and looked out of the game with only 83 runs on the board at the half way mark. That changed in the second half of their innings though with Trent Griffiths and Culko cashing in on some generous English bowling to score 30s before retiring, and left the Aussies clear favourites with only 31 required off the last 5 overs. Fortunately for the English Jay Alexander took a great timely catch and their saving grace arrived to the wicket in the form of Drew Langford, who was having difficulties to see or hit the ball. With this the English quickly adopted the tactic of trying to keep him in and on strike as much as possible, and with some tight bowling at the death from Mike Harris and Giles Grinsted the Aussies were left with 7 to win off the final over which proved too much - England winning by 5 runs. Thanks everyone who played, came down to watch , Al for DJing, Sheik Patrick Donovan for umpiring, Pablo Martinez for becoming the defacto sausage sizzle chef...it was a top afternoon - England happy to end their summer of Ashes cricket misery on a high and all looking forward to the next Bashes later in the year!
Posted on: Mon, 24 Feb 2014 03:02:25 +0000
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