Tag Archives: Cricket
Nick scores a century
Cricket
Nick and I are playing cricket for Glenbrook-Blaxland Cricket club this year. I am in 8th Grade, Nick is in 5th Grade. I have been Mr Consistency this year. I’ve opened the innings both matches, facing the first ball, and in both matches I have lasted 13 overs and scored 5 runs, being out LBW each time!
Nick, however, has done somewhat better. Today he scored his first-ever century at cricket (he’s scored 52, 53 and 56 previously, but never over 60).
Today he scored 120.
His team only scored 200 all out, so it can be seen that his contribution was important. Three sixes, and lots of one-bounce fours – this is Nick, after all.
This is what happens if you’ve scored 120 and are very, very tired ….
Sport
We are soon going to be at the start of the cricket season here in Australia. This means that for me (David) I feel the need to become slightly less useless as a member of the lowest division cricket side for Glenbrook-Blaxland CC in the local league. So I have been having a couple of “net sessions”, facing a bowling machine in some indoor nets in Penrith. The first session wasn’t too bad, although I wasn’t turning in to face the ball enough as I batted, and was hit a couple of times just inside and above of my left knee (I bat left-handedly). When I went back the next week our coach wasn’t there, so Andrew set the machine going for me, and although the speed was about half of what a professional fast bowler would manage, the first ball was WAY too fast for me, and hit exactly where the bruises were just going purple from the previous week.
I hope that Andrew was already familiar with the words that I used ….
Nick, meanwhile, is continuing to enjoy his hockey. His side will be in the “finals” (actually, as four sides progress to the “semi.s” out of a total of six teams in the whole league, this doesn’t mean a lot in itself. However Nick’s side are coming second. As you can see, it takes three people to get the ball from Nick.
Grand Final Victory
Nick’s team won!
This was a classic game of cricket. Glenbrook-Blaxland CC were the underdogs, having come second to the “minor premiers”, Glenmore Park. Initially the game seemed to be going according to their positions on the ladder. After the first twenty overs or so, GBCC were 5 wickets down for 57 runs, and an early finish might have been contemplated. However Brad Astill (eventually out for 95) and Zac Downward stopped the slide, and then successive 50-run partnerships between Nick Coulshed (55) and first Brad Astill and then Luke Morgan turned the game around, such that GBCC lasted all day, finishing on 9-195.
“click” to see the off-stump is shattered, and the bail flying up in the air!
The second day was even hotter than the first, and Glenmore Park did well to keep up with the required run-rate. However wickets fell steadily, including a particularly spectacular effort from Zac Downward (4 wickets), who broke one of the stumps!
Glenbrook- Blaxland Cricket Club Fifth Grade Grand Final Champions
The tenth wicket partnership was one of frustration for GBCC, but the eventual breakthrough by Luke Morgan (3 wickets) left GBCC worthy winners on the day.
Finals Cricket
The Fifth Grade finals are this weekend – Nick’s team for his first “Senior” season. The team came second in the league, the semi-final was washed out, so they are playing now in the Grand Final.
It did not start well. The team they are playing are a very good bowling side, and shortly after I (David) arrived, Glenbrook-Blaxland CC were 5-57. Their number 3 was holding on in there, but after the next wicket fell, in went Nick.
“Get your eye in first ….”
All the rest of the team were saying “just stay there and support Brad”, and “get your eye in, Nick”.
That’s exactly what he did. Next wicket to fall was Brad (95, poor guy) after a 51-run partnership for the 7th wicket. Nick was on 13, after 24 overs. It was a very slow outfield with long grass.
Click to enlarge
Then in came Luke Morgan (Nick’s friend and contemporary in the team), and a 49 run partnership ensued (in 7 overs) – but now with Nick in the driving seat. it was wonderful to watch. At one point Nick hit their best bowler (who had been “sledging” Nick) for 15 in an over (including two 4s and a 6). Fortunately I was there with my camera, and so was Sue.
This looks like another “Watch out, Dad” moment, but this time I was beyond the boundary!
.
When the end was nearing (it was an 85-over match), Nick hit out once too often and was caught. I don’t think he was too upset by this stage.
From 5-57, Nick’s team reached 9-195 by the end, so they have a good chance of victory on the second day.
What ARE you doing? You can’t leave me NOW!
As a final note: Luke clearly wasn’t impressed when Nick was out ….
February
Back to school ….
There is a huge difference, however: Nick can drive!
This is a huge development, which we really didn’t see in advance. Perhaps it’s dependent on the person – Nick is a reliable, sensible person to whom we are more than happy to entrust the car. in fact I think Sue is less worried about Nick driving than she is about me (David). So if Nick (or Andrew) needs to stay late, or get home early (cricket training, for instance), Nick can take the car to school, and the problem is solved.
The cricket season has re-started after the Christmas break. That sounds a really odd thing to say for an Englishman, but not for an Australian, as I have become. Nick is now opening the batting for 2nd Grade, for Glenbrook-Blaxland Cricket Club. He hasn’t made a big score, yet, but it is still a much greater achievement than his father ever managed!
Nick opens the batting for 2nd Grade, at St John’s Oval.
He is now an imposing figure – 188cm and 70 kg – and has the potential to be a destructive opener: when he gets going he can really tear a bowling attack apart.
December 2012 Entry
Friday, Dec 28, 2012
Christmas and New Year.
It has been over three months since I entered a ‘blog. This is partly because the service provider we have been using has developed a fault with my being unable to put pictures into my entries and some other problems. So I am going to change service providers, once I have worked out just how to transfer the content. In the meantime I have been reluctant even to use the parts which DO work. A little silly, really.
So what have we been up to?
Well, Andrew and Nick have finished another year at school. Nick came top of his year.
The Victor Chang Award (best year 11 science student at the school)
Nick won the Victor Chang award for his school – the best science student in the penultimate year of each school in Sydney is awarded this prize, which includes a A$20,000 grant if they go on to study at the University of Western Sydney, and $500 cash!
I have been struggling with Admin., as ever. I warned a yearago about a potential breakdown in our whole testing/imaging system. We set about replacing it as a matter of urgency, and a year later it still needs to be done. I guess that I am grateful really that we haven’t had a total breakdown, but I genuinely believed what I told the administrators, and don’t like appearing a fool now that no Armageddon has actually occurred ….
My model railway has come on a treat.
I finished my model Garratt (as those who have followed this ‘blog will know). I’ve also built a coal “washery” or “screens” under which coal trucks are loaded via conveyor belts.
I realise that the model colliery is nearly complete (at least as I originally intended). Given that no model railway can ever really be completed, I guess that soon I will have to rip it all up and apart, and start on something new ….
I have been playing cricket again this year. For 7th Grade (up from 9th, purely by chance), and achieved a score of thriteen in my first match. Not much, but good under the circumstances (I went in when the side were 4/19, and was out at 76, so over a 50 run partnership (with a 16-year-old, who did most of the work for us, of course).
In the second match, however, I was fielding close in (too close, silly mid-on) and when the ball was hit at me, I neither caught it, not avoided it well enough. The result was a broken thumb, which meant that I lost about a third of our cricket season’s matches. I returned to play in the just-before-Christmas social match within Glenbrook-Blaxland Cricket Club. Poor Nick: I bowled 2 overs in the match, and nick was the first batsman. He clearly didn’t feel he should hit his father’s first ball out of sight, and changed his shot. This was a fatal error, as he then edged it and was caught behind! I ended with figures of 2 overs, 3 wickets, 9 runs! I don’t think that that is going to happen again in a hurry!
We are off to Japan again in a week’s time. Off to Niseko this year. The skiing should be really good, and this time we are going Cathay Pacific via Hong Kong partly to avoid flying QANTAS, and partly to avoid having to change airports in Tokyo (there are no direct Sydney-to-Hokkaido flights). So on the way home we can spend a few days in Hong Kong, also.
March 2012 Entries
Monday, Mar 26, 2012
High Res. – click to enlarge
Garratt at work
My Garratt is working.
You can tell from its rusty and dirty appearance.
High Res. – click to enlarge
It has even got its own driver now.
Sunday, Mar 18, 2012
The Garratt, again
My 0-4-0+0+4-0 Garratt is nearly finished: look!
Factory finish – it looks beautiful, if not realistic!
It doesn’t have the cab roof in place, or a crew inside, but other than that it’s looking good ….
The “bow” pen arrived this week, (specially imported from Haff pens in Germany!) so I could at last do the lining – red and white lines, which “bring out” the shapes of the bunker and water tank, and certainly improves the overall appearance. Two pictures at High Resolution (Click on the picture to enlarge it):
However I will now be going to “weather” the locomotive. I haven’t yet seen a picture of the actual loco. that didn’t show it seriously dirty and covered in coal dust, etc. I’m going for realism (and it covers some of the mistakes that I have made!).All to be published in the Scale Seven magazine ….
Saturday, Mar 03, 2012
Cricket, etc
It has been amazingly wet here recently.
I’m sitting at home whilst I should be watching our Ninth Grade side in their Grand Final: the ground was almost flooded. We have had so much rain that the Nepean river is flooded. Nick and Andrew’s school was closed on Friday and will probably be closed on Monday. The school itself doesn’t get flooded, but access roads have standing water, and teachers or pupils living on the far side of the Nepean/Hawkesbury River simply cannot get to school.
Nick was due to be in two Grand Finals today, and neither will take place. It’s unlikely that even tomorrow conditions will be good enough to play.
The semi-finals were both great to watch. From a parents point of view the Under 16 Div1 final was perfect. Facing 138 to win, on a sodden field where runs were very hard to get, the opening pair made about 85 off 45 overs (out of 60). Then two wickets fell in quick succession, and the task was just looking as though it might prove to be quite tricky.
Nick goes in at Number 4, and announces his arrival by hitting their best bowler for three (no stroke had earned more than two runs in the first 45 overs!), and immediately increased the run-rate to about 5 per over. He hit the winning runs with plenty of overs to spare. Just the innings that his side needed, and wonderful to watch as he systematically demolished the opposition attack. The ninth Grade Semi-Final was exciting and very different. Played on a sodden pitch with long grass, scores were low. GBCC Ninth Grade were all out for 127 off 77 overs. At the end of the first day they had the opposition at 4/15 off ten overs. By a few overs into the second day, two more wickets had fallen, but after that no more for too long ….
At 6/115 we looked lost.
However Big Willie (centre of the front row in the picture) never gave up, rallied the troops, and they were all out for 122.
This was not a match for the Coulsheds to “write home” about (” ‘blog proudly”?). David was on the sidelines, and Nick scored a duck and bowled only one over because of his very sore shoulder. However it was a great match to watch.
We might reach the dizzy heights of Eighth Grade next year – or will we form another Ninth Grade side with some new hopeless recruits?