Moreton vs Fugro 23/04/2015
Moreton won by 35 runs

Man of the Match - Jagadish Vallarampara for his two wickets in two balls in Fugro’s first over of 2015
Champagne Moment (s) – Darren Burbury’s selecting his driver from the bag and unleashing a classy six over mid-wicket / Anton Dyson picking up on the boundary and throwing down the stumps with pin-point accuracy

Following a successful draft for the new season it was fantastic to take to the field and enjoy some balmy April sunshine. The venue was The Bear-at-Home in Moreton, and a large crowd had amassed for what promised to be another entertaining affair after previous years dramatic run chases and finishes in the early evening darkness. The toss was won, and Fugro took to the Plan A approach of fielding first and limiting Moreton from their 15x8 ball overs.

Jagadish Vallarampara took the 2015 season like a ’weather forecaster to the end of the news’ snaring two wickets in the first over, a fabulous display of new ball bowling with swing both ways. This was ably assisted by Tom Smith from the other end, keeping the bowling tight and accurate with a particularly short boundary on one side of the pitch to negotiate. The early innings optimism was slowly eaten away by some good batting from Moreton, working the ball around and picking up boundaries when required. The Fugro fielding was let’s say….mercurial. Two great run-outs from Anton Dyson and Chris A Smith, two great catches from Dyson and C.A.Smith, some body-on-the-line ground fielding on the aforementioned short boundary by Chris Steven, Lewis Entwistle and Rob Hines. That is about where the fielding ended, this reporter chooses to forget the horrendous midfields (mostly by himself) and 4+ dropped catches. Special mention to Darren Burbury and Chris Steven who both bowled excellently, Steven picking up his first wicket an LBW in the closing overs, similarly to the two wickets of the returning T.Smith at the death. Moreton entered the 10 over, 88 for 5 and further accelerated to the end of the innings totalling 151, a formidable target.

With a mountain to climb Entwistle and Stuart Ellis (4) stepped out to make a positive start. However, Moreton has not read the script this year and were making a much more concerted effort to win the game putting on their medium pacers in the gathering gloom which led to much confusion in the score hut regarding fours or sixes and how many runs had been taken, to paraphrase the number 8 batsman – pads already on - ‘we can’t see a bloody thing!’. Entwistle and Ellis fell cheaply following by Chris E Smith and Hines. David Kilcoyne (10) survived a first ball scare and offered some scant resistance but went for one too many and was caught. It was left to Dyson (29) and C.A.Smith (38*) to steady the ship and start to accumulate some runs, supported by cameo appearances from Burbury (9), Steven (1), Vallarampara (5) and T.Smith (12). The short boundary made anything possible and at ~ 80 from 10 overs, it was not an inconceivable that Fugro could indeed reach the required target. The supporters were cheering every shot with gusto (including six sixes the most in any Fugro innings I can remember!) as Fugro tried to accelerate. Alas too little too late, Dyson returning after his earlier retirement was stumped to end the innings on 116.