Our longest away trip of the season had us travelling out to Ivanhoe. Which was a massive clash, a spot in the top 4 at the Christmas break for the winner.

Winning the toss I decided we’ll have a bat and look to make use of the nice batting conditions early. Rohan and Imran opened up. We lost Rohan early in the second over of the innings. With Ivanhoe not giving us many loose balls. The runs were slowly ticking along. We lost Vinny with the score at 2-44 off 15. We needed to get a move on. Nathan was next in and mistimed a pull shot and was caught at square leg. 3-60 at drinks. The Drinks break came at a good time and we looked to reset and attack the second half of the innings. I joined Imran at the crease and after hitting a few boundaries I departed trapped infront LBW for 19. Mitch now joined Imran at the crease. As we still looked to press on and play aggressive cricket. Mitch swung his bat at afew and departed for 10 which brought Cranny to the crease. Cranny and Imran steadied the ship and put on 40 before Imran was out for a well made 29. From then on it was vintage Cranwell playing shots 360 degrees and the bowlers had no answer as he raced to 44 and was unluckily bowled on the last ball of the innings. Qasim chipped in with 18 and looked really impressive while batting.
We finished 8-179 a lot better then I had thought we’d make at the half way stage.

Defending 179 on a smallish ground and a flat pitch was going to take a full team effort and we got off to the best possible start. Having Ivanhoe in serious trouble at 4-41 Taj picking up the 1st. Mitch bowling a treat and picking up 2 and Kaillen 1. Ivanhoe steadied and built a decent partnership helped along the way by us with 5 dropped catches during this time they put on 120 before we picked up the next two wickets to now have Ivanhoe 6-159 Qasim continued his stellar season getting breakthrough for us and finishing with figures of 8 overs 1-26. I then came onto bowl and removed the other set batsmen. We were still a chance but really cost ourselves during this middle stage of the game. Nathan Kennedy swung the momentum back our way with 2 quick wickets. One stumping and another caught at first slip. But end we just fell short and they passed our score 8 down a disappointing result in the end but the fight back from the boys at different stages when we could have easily rolled over and given them an easy win.
Big things to come next year
Merry Christmas 🎅🏻

Haydn Shaw 3XI Captain