Hit for six
Air Force dominates NSW cricket carnival

CPL Luke Barry, from 3SQN, plays a pull shot on his way to an eventual score of 79 during the Navy and Air Force match, part of the NSW Inter-Service Cricket Carnival held at RAAF Base Richmond.

Photo by LS Yuri Ramsey

By Private John Wellfare

AIR Force cricketers hit the competition for six in the NSW inter-Service cricket carnival at RAAF Base Richmond from October 25-27.

OIC NSW Air Force Cricket Corporal Michael Esam said the team members, who had formed the side from trials on October 20 and 21, weren’t sure what to expect from the competition in the beginning.

“We didn’t know many of the opposition, we hadn’t heard too much in the lead-up to the carnival and we weren’t really struggling for a side, but we were having a bit of difficulty getting people to the trials and the carnival,” he said.

“We thought we had a pretty good basis of a team for batting – which we proved that we did – and we were just a little bit worried that our bowling attack might not be as sharp as we would like.”

In the match against Army on October 25, the Air Force batsmen came out first and racked up an impressive seven for 280.

The bowlers didn’t let the side down either; cleaning up the Army side for 260.

On the second day of competition, the Air Force team members took a break and watched defending champions Navy go down to Army all out for 156 against the soldiers’ 165.

On day three, the deflated Navy team was all that stood between Air Force and victory in the carnival.

“It gave us a bit of confidence going into it, thinking that, if we’d beaten the Army already, surely we should be able to do something about the Navy,” Corporal Esam said.

Air Force again batted first, but didn’t show quite the same impressive form as in the match against Army; struggling to reach 255 by the time all batsmen were bowled out.

It turned out to be more than enough breathing space for the Air Force bowlers to cut down the Navy side.
“We had some nice tight bowling that made them have to rush their shots.

“We tied them down very well for a lot of the overs, so they had to start trying to chase runs a lot harder and we were lucky to get wickets – they were running out of overs fairly quickly.”

In the end, the sailors were bowled out for 174, leaving the Air Force clear winners of the match and the carnival.

Corporal Esam said all the Air Force players performed to a high standard in both matches, despite lacking some NSW cricket regulars due to work commitments.

“Corporal Luke Barry performed very well, opening the batting for us on both occasions,” he said. “He scored 49 in the Army match and I think it was about 78 [79] in the Navy match.

“It was an outstanding performance by Corporal Matt Cooper against the Army – he was run out on 94. Leading Aircraftman Matt Monaghan batted with him at the same time – he made 76.

“Leading Aircraftman Luke Simmons and Leading Aircraftman David Morris-Brauer didn’t do too bad with the ball.

“[Leading Aircraftman] Simmons got four wickets against the Army [and] Leading Aircraftman Michael Gunn and Corporal Cooper got wickets against the Navy.”

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