Intermediate Cricket

On Thursday 7 March, thirteen boys from across Years 9 and 10 represented Wantirna College’s Intermediate Cricket team. Led by co-captains Giuseppe Strati and Jack Taylor, we played two 15 over games, against Upwey and Rowville.

Our Captains made a brave choice in our opening game against Upwey, opening the bowling with three overs of spin. This worked to great effect in the third over, with Adam (1/7 off 2) dismissing one of Upwey’s handy opener, thanks to a composed boundary line catch from Blake. In the middle overs of the innings, Shaan was effective at smashing through Upwey’s middle order, picking up a very handy 2/3 off his 2 overs, thanks to some nice catches from Jake and Preet. 

Both Shaan and Kavya (1/4) picked up wickets with their first deliveries, while Lachlan (1/6) was our other wicket taker late in the innings, with Jack claiming a stumping. Unfortunately, Upwey had some handy batsmen in their team with one of their openers retiring at 40*, giving us 127 to chase.

In response, Dalton (25) and Luke (16) got us off to a handy start, while Jack (20) tried his best in the dying overs. While all our batsmen played some nice shots, we couldn’t quite get the run rate up high enough and finished the innings at 5/85.

We decided to be a lot more aggressive with the bat in our third-place playoff game against Rowville. Both Luke and Giuseppe found the boundary rope early on their way to 18 and 15 respectively, and were well supported by Dale (10) and Ryan (18). But the real star of the show was fast bowler-turned-pinch hitter Jake, who smashed 2 sixers and 4 fours on his way to an impressive 35. At one stage, Jake smashed a six onto the top of a nearby water tank.

After Jack clean bowled Rowville’s opened on the 2nd ball of the innings, we looked in complete control with our 127-run lead. But a 48-run partnership threatened to steal the game away from us. Enter co-captain Giuseppe, who picked up wickets with the first and fifth balls of his over. He followed this up with a wicket maiden, before striking again in his 3rd over to finish with the enviable figures of 4/2 off 3 overs. Two of those wickets were caught by Jake, while Dale, Shaan, Dalton and Luke also took their chances in the field. Jack (2/3 off 3) and Lachlan (1/9 off 2) helped us slow down the run rate in the final overs, with Rowville finishing with 7/88.

Overall, it was an enjoyable day for our intermediate cricketers with most players in our squad getting both a bat and a bowl, and everyone getting to at least practise their speciality. The opposition coaches remarked on the friendliness and sportsmanship of our team, who did a commendable job at reflecting the Wantirna school values throughout the competition. 

Squad: Preet Chaudhari, Dalton Hooper, Dale Jeffery, Lachlan Munro, Shaan Patel, Kavya Pindoriya, Giuseppe Strati (co-captain), Jack Taylor, Jake Taylor (co-captain), Adam Veljovic, Blake White, Ryan Wong, Luke Ziza

Mr Kevin Hawkins

Cricket Coach