Who Plays Cricket?

[Donny]

Anthony (couragous cloke) is playing a very important match - a virtual semi - today. They must win to play in the finals which begin next weekend.

Go, Clokey!

Donny.

THE BOYS ARE BACK IN TOWN !!!!

[foxy]

i must've bowled millions of overs with a tape ball in cricket nets around melbourne. nothing better than grabbing a slab, heading down to the local nets with some mates, and playing like maniacs all day. sure, the drinking in public part is illegal, but no worries.

there's a set of brand new nets in Orrong Park, Toorak. i recommend you check them out. beautiful, green, bouncy surface with fantastic carry. they even offer a little bit of spin as your tape ball wears a bit thin.

i'm the man for all your tape ball needs. i've wasted hundreds of tennis balls and kilometres of tape trying to make the perfect tape ball.

traditionally, the 'swing ball' has been popular - that is, a tennis ball you tape up on one side only, such that it swings violently when bowled correctly. but i've never been a fan, and they seem to be going out of fashion. they are simply too light and nearly impossible to control.

after many years of experience, this is the perfect recipe for a good, long-lasting tape ball which retains bounce and pace:

any tennis ball (preferably new and bouncy).
one moderately thin layer of cheap sticky tape, to act as a bouncy underlay.
then, on top of that, one or two well-applied layers of good-quality electrical tape, preferably red or black.
a sturdy seam made from a fair bit of sticky tape. a sticky tape seam will stay bouncy, as opposed to thick electrical tape seams, which tend to get a bit hard and make the ball a bit sluggish.
it is advised, however, that you put one roll of electrical tape over your complete sticky-tape seam. this is for presentation purposes: a red electrical tape seam on a black tape ball will look foreboding for any batsman.

you'll get hours of enjoyment if you follow those steps closely. of course, actually applying the tape is an artform itself, but you'll learn quickly. should your tape ball start to break up or crack, hand it to a mate who can bowl a bit of spin, then ditch the ball when it's nearly dead. it's near impossible to resurrect a ball by re-taping cracks in the surface. the ball will become hard as a rock and useless.

cheers!

[JLC]

Have to agree there foxy, Electrical tape is the way to go. Although don't let the bowlers so the taping as im sure they will add a few extra layers....lol lol

jlc

Its not arrogance if you can back it up

Fate is what you are given, Destiny is what you do with it

Essendon 2000 premiers
2001 runners up
2002 fifth
2003 ????
The slide continues

[Ev5Magpies]

We made the finals. We finished 2nd & now have a home final. The best thing is that a few weeks ago the VTCA announced the grand final venues & the one for our division is at our home ground!
So if we win this week we get a home Grand Final...
Major selection dilemmas for our match committee, there are 17 players who have qualified to play. I'm right though, i open the bowling & have taken 25 wickets with an average of 15.7.

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CHRIS WAZ ERE '03

[gobbles21]

We played our Grand Final last Saturday and Sunday. We were playing the Colts, who finished on top of the ladder. We started dereadfully. At one stage we were 8/110. We soon ended up pushing our score to 9/162 off 70 overs. A very low score, especially against a strong opposition, we were hopeing for a score much larger than this. We all finished Saturday with our heads down and didn't feel confident.

Sunday was a different story though. We all turned up to the ground with a positive attitude, knowing that we needed to be positive, and bowl them out if we were to be any chance of a victory. We made a few unusual decisions that payed off. Our captain, usually 4th change bowler that bowls medium pace, took the new ball and had an imediate effect, finnishing his spell with 2/8 from 5 overs. All the other bowlers used bowled very well, and at the 20 over mark the Colts were in trouble at 7/35, with evryone fielding and catching superbly. We ended up dismissing them for 54 (Their lowest score in History), and winning the Holbrook and District C.A. B-Grade premiership.

Earlier in the day our U/16's and U/13's both won their premierships, and the A-Grade have their Grand Final this Saturday and Sunday.
Good Luck Fellas!

[Fradam]

Congratulations Gobbles. Great effort.

I'm 12th man in our side for our semi. Got left out not so much on my form but a few of the boy's made big scores in the B's and I haven't had an opportunity to have a decent hit since Christmas.

Hopefully if we win I'll be back in.

[Ev5Magpies]

Yeah congrats Gobbles.
We lost our semi final & are now out of the race. We were dismissed for 182 against a pretty weak bowling attack, but we seemed to get ourselves out when we were getting set. Some dodgy umpiring didn't help either. They made it 6 down, but a bit of controversy earlier, we had a guy caught behind on 5, was given not out, went on to make 75 & after the game the umpire had the nerve to say that he made a mistake!!!
To make things worse the team that finished on top lost to the 4th place team which we beat outright, so we would have been a shoe-in...BUT we didn't so bring on the footy hey....

[Donny]

OK, the new season is under way. How are you all going ?

Racking up the runs, Anthony ? Fradam ? Gobbles ?

Let's hear from you.

[couragous cloke]

I wont be gettin a game for a while... im sick, but i still go n watch the boys.