July Cricket results written by Johnnie F

Cricket results, 3-Jul

We ventured down to beautiful Gardens Oval to take on the Waratahs footballers.

The day started well with winning the toss = batting first! There was some good tight bowling early and runs were tough to come by. Jason "Growth" Hatton and Manish fell for not many, and then Alex "Buddy" Krepapas and Chris "NASA" Parker put on an excellent 112 run partnership. Chris was launching balls into the upper atmosphere, with one eventually landing on the roof of the largest grandstand - massive! Chris made 66 and Alex 58. A few others chipped in as we tried to keep the runs flowing while wickets were falling. At the end we were 9/210.

Brad "Jazzman" Hatton and Andy "The new Snell?" Moore bowled well and ripped through the top-order, snaring 3 each. Michael "good to be home" Best came on to spin up 3 wickets, with Nathan Jury capping a wonderful day in the field by taking a caught and bowled (his second catch of the day!). Tah-tahs saying ta-ta for 126.
10-Jul-10
We met 2nd on the ladder PINT at Nightcliff. I lost the toss and was asked to bowl first, against an opposition missing a few key players.

Brad "count the steps" Hatton and Anthony "vuvuzela" Snell started well. Brad picked up 4 (off his '10' overs) and Snelly 1, to again decimate the top-order. Andy "007" Moore pushed his claims to be in the opening pair by snaring 3/4 and Nathan "Executioner" Jury claimed 2. A great bowling and fielding performance saw PINT all out for a meagre (but magical) 69.

Alex "straight line" Krepapas was run out early, after being called through for a 3rd by Jason "danger end" Hatton and almost colliding with his partner, he was found metres short after a direct hit from the keeper. Jason was hitting the ball beautifully until out for 30 with scores tied. Colin "Mr Cricket" Ralph was elevated to number 3 and relished the opportunity, scoring a quickfire 15. Manish "!" Bhatnager and Adam "finally got a hit" Glover easily got us home. We ended up 4/82.
17-Jul-10
Won the toss and batted. After losing Jason Hatton cheaply, Krepapas and Bhatnagar kept runs flowing against tight bowling, each scoring mid-teens. Chris Parker entered the scene to again show his class. Great hitting with controlled aggression saw him smash 84 off 84. He featured in a 100+ run partnership with Fryar (41). Andy Moore came in for an excellent 39no off about 20 balls, with Michael Best and Brad Hatton chipping in with some quick runs towards the finish. We ended up with 6/252.

Brad and Anthony Snell kept some pressure on early but wickets were hard to come by. Nathan Jury finally broke through, and Sunny Singh grabbed another soon after. Jabiru were 2/91 at drinks, with one of their openers on 71. Besty replaced Jury and with Singh made it very hard for the batsman to score as quickly as they needed to. The required run rate escalated quickly. We picked up a couple more wickets, some catches went down and as the sun was setting, we finally got through our overs - Jabiru 6/196.

A good win and good work-out for us.

Andy's Unemployed

I found out this week that CSG will not be able to renew my contract. In the new model set up by NTG there are no projects (long story) so NTG are going to manage them. So it is a bit quite in my last couple of weeks so they give me a facilities manage roll where I have to shut down all the old buildings we used to be in. We have just moved to the 8th & 9th floor of a brand new building and closed down 4 old sites. It has been quite interesting. Friday was my last day and a little sad but I will miss the CSG guys I actually really enjoyed working with them and built up a good relationship with quite a few of the people there.

July in Dry

Well its July already, how the months pass so quickly while you are working, yes believe it or not Tina and I are still on the 9-5 life. Pays the bills and is swelling our savings account so all good.
The dry season has all but disappeared and the locals are confused. Its getting hot already and some days are quite steamy. We had an overnight low of 27° the other night boy it was hot.
We have pretty standard routine these days Wednesday Tina goes walking with Jan, Thursday Night Cricket training followed by tea and a stay over at Brian & Jan’s. I have been working a fair bit Saturday mornings so Tina has a sleep in. We do some shopping and bum around. Sunday is Cricket day and Tina comes to watch and has a few beers. I’m the designated driver on Sundays and we often hang around for a few after the game if it doesn’t finish too late. Then Monday it’s off to work again to start it all over again.

We have been getting out to Dundee a bit more to finish off that tiling, wow Dundee is bulk flash now. The fishing has been a little light on though, bloody tourists, and with the road getting better more people with bigger boats are getting out there. Lucky we have Jan with us to keep the numbers up.

The sunsets are still just as spectacular each time we go there. The other week long time friends of Tina’s Doug & jenny came up form SA. We had a great time and ate lots of Lamb that he had brought up with him it was very nice. On the way out to Dundee with them I hit a Wallaby our first road kill ever with the Tojo. Pretty impressive given the amount of k’s we have done and the outback roads we have travelled. So life goes on and we grow ever fonder of Darwin. It’s a great lifestyle.