Report by Daniel Mortlock:
We won more matches than we lost, but we should have won almost as many again; if we'd been able to we might even have won CCA Junior 3 South, rather than once again finding ourselves stuck in the middle of the league table once again. Any hopes of promotion were pretty much done by the time we'd lost four of our first five league fixtures; after that we won seven from ten as we were able to field near-full-strength teams on a regular basis.
In terms of this season's averages that would mean a top eight who each scored between 100-odd and 350-odd runs at between 25 and 60 and a bowling attack led by three bowlers with 20+ wickets and an average in the mid-teens. As was the case last year the prime batting star was James McNamara (362 runs at 60.33) who this time qualified for - and so won - the batting award, although Cam Petrie (362 runs at 36.20) scored as many runs and Ferdi Rex (193 runs at 47.75) actually "had" the batting award until he was dismissed with just a handful of overs remaining in our final innings of the year. On the bowling front, Daniel Mortlock (23 wickets at 14.35) and Faruk Kara (22 wickets at 18.55) did well enough, but it was entirely appropriate that the bowling award went to Andy Owen (28 wickets at 14.21), who'd have had a great shot at the all-time record for most wickets in a season if he hadn't chosen to sit out the final game of the year.
This last match (against NCI, with our mid-table safety assured) was a lovely end to the season, with both players and supporters congregating on Parker's Piece to drink Pimm's and watch a real team victory before a good dozen of us headed off for an impromptu team dinner. As a model for next season this would be hard to beat . . .