It was with great pleasure we were once again able to welcome the Honest Trundlers back to the Valley of Peace after the enforced Covid absence of 2 and a half years.
The day dawned fine and sunny and the ground staff were happy to report the pitch was ready to go after some earlier concerns due to unseasonable wet weather.
After winning the toss we decided to bat first and our openers got us off to a solid start putting on a 50-run opening stand with Nick Smithson scoring 36 and Tom Music 29. A couple of starts from Tony Penny and Ben Larter, both scoring 22, had us well placed to push on but the loss of both quickly saw us 8 down with 10 overs remaining. Skip and Tim Fulton managed to get through the last 10 overs adding 40 to give us a score of 202 at the completion of our 50 overs.
This score looked to be competitive with our bowling stocks seemingly in good supply, especially after taking a couple of early wickets. However, the Trundlers’ middle order proved to be very strong this tour as they powered through to 152 before we took another wicket, with Brad especially devastating with 11 boundaries in quick time leaving the tail an easy task to chase us down with 4 overs to spare. Our stand-out bowlers were Eddie Parsons with 8 overs for 24 and Ben Larter with 8 overs, 1 for 22.
A first-up loss then for Valley of Peace but an excellent day at the ground followed by a meal out at Elmwood Trading Company, where we enjoyed great camaraderie with our Aussie mates and joined in on Whispering Ted’s rendition of the Trundlers Battle Hymn sung only when the team celebrate a win.
Stu and the Trundlers will be back again in February when we look forward to hosting them again and under the Captaincy of Lance Ryan look to reverse the result.
Match report by Phil Harris
Top L-R, Geoff Olsen, Neil Baldwin, James Orford, Max Poyser, Ian (Whispering Ted) Lowe, John Munden; Bottom L-R, Brad Geelan, John Lindsay, Dave Erikson, Stuart Spalding, John Renshaw
