By Joshua Hamilton
Mount Evelyn 4th XI Vs Wandin 3rd XI at Mount Evelyn Reserve (Gary Smith Oval):
Wandin would make the short trip from home base and face the minor premier Mount Evelyn. After losing the toss and being asked to bat first in some gloomy, overcast and at times wet conditions, Mount Evelyn would make a near-perfect start when they removed in form Wandin opening batsmen Luke Falkingham with the last ball of the first over off the bowling of Joel Garner. Jason Kneebone would be the next man in to join Brad McKenzie as Brad looked to be the main aggressor as he found the boundary fence 4 times to finish with an important 24 runs from 27 balls. We were 2/26 when Jason departed for 10 and 3/45 when Brad was stumped down the leg side. The attention turned to Matt Owens who batted superbly all year long to finish as the 2nd top run-scorer in the grade but when he lost his wicket for 9 runs, Mount Evelyn was right on top with Wandin 5/66 at the halfway point of their innings/drinks break.
The Doggies were wounded but captain Patrick Laws wouldn’t go down without providing some stubborn, serious resistance as he fought his way valiantly to 23 before being caught trying to up the run rate with the score reading 9/104 then the last Wandin wicket would fall on 109 with young Rory Vallence being caught at first slip. While there wasn’t a lot of runs to play with, Wandin had the runs on the board, with massive amounts of belief in our bowling attack and a new ball in hand, all eyes were on Mount Evelyn to see how they would approach chasing down the runs as stranger things have happened in finals. While Jackson Kneebone and Shaun Doolan bowled some very good bowls, Mount Evelyn took an ultra-aggressive approach and punished the not so bad balls for big boundaries. While the Doggies never, ever gave up and fought right to the bitter end as we were able to take 2 wickets via some sharp catching, Mount Evelyn would pass us with an ample amount of overs to go and would end a highly successful and enjoyable year in the 3’s. Having multiple father-son combinations and some experienced senior heads to help lead the way forward we can hold our heads high and look back on the good times as well as the tough ones. We learn and we take this loss as a motivator to season 2022/2023.
