City United exacted revenge of sorts, thrashing last year's premiers Western Suburbs in the opening round of the 2016-17 Maitland first grade cricket season.
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City’s bowlers were able to take wicked at regular intervals and dismissed Wests for 199 and then the batsman turned it on to pass the chase at 2/202 with 11 overs to go.
Wests won the 2015-16 decider against City courtesy of a hard-hitting century by Michael Rees and a speedy 50 by Aaron Mahony, but this time it was City skipper Matt Trappel and Karl Bowd and who did the damage with the bat.
Trappel scored an unbeaten 87 and Bowd hit 70 after making a solid start with Matt Latham.
“We did well to restrict them to 199 on a lightning fast Robins Oval. The best of our bowlers were Ben Davies and Blake Thomas Chandler with three each.”
“Ryan Merrick chipped in with tidy 2-6 off seven. Tim Burton’s first first grade wicket couldn’t get much better knocking over the best bat in the comp Aaron Mahony with a great ball.”
Wests were unable to string together partnerships almost all of their line-up making solid starts.
The Plovers scored quick enough but were dismissed in the 42nd over.
Opener Thomas Rumbel and No.11 Luke Donnelly were the only players not to reach double figures, with Luke Merchant top scoring on 32, wicket-keeper Luke Knight making 26 and Mahony and Josh Fisher adding 21.
East Maitland v Northern Suburbs
It only took one game for the first shock result of the season and Eastern Suburbs did it in style humbling the fancied Northern Suburbs line-up boosted by the return of Tim Prescott.
The Griffins bowled Norths out for 186 in the 36th over and then cruised to victory with nine wickets in hand posting 1/188.
Matthew Magann showed his prodigious cricketing talent with an unbeaten 85 off just 92 balls. The innings included 17 fours and a six.
Opener Jack Stoneham played the anchor role, compiling 54 not out from 126 balls, after Andrew Vickery got the Griffins off to a flyer with a run-a-ball 20.
Easts shared the wickets around with all six bowlers used claiming a wicket.
Mitchell Saxby top scored for Norths with 41.
Kurri Weston v Thornton Park
Kurri Weston won a hard-fought match against Thornton Park passing the visitor’s 9/177 with just two wickets in hand and six overs to spare at Kurri Central.
All six Warriors bowlers used claimed wickets with Justin Kavanagh steering the visitors home with an unbeaten 51.
Thornton bowlers Jack Reeves (3-45), Ricky Mace (2-29) and Jamie Krake (2-23) made the Warriors work hard. Daniel Willis top scored for Thornton with 41.