Officers bowled over at Williams

Volume 48, No. 7, May 04, 2006

OFFICERS broke a four-year drought when they proved too strong for the airmen at the RAAF Base Williams annual cricket match.

Despite a promising start, the airmen were bowled out for 92 after 17 overs at the competition held at Point Cook recently.

The officers started off slowly, but after a late surge, managed to chase down the required runs with four wickets in hand and three overs to spare.

The twenty-twenty format was used for the first time in this competition, and limited each side to 20 overs per innings, with each bowler bowling a maximum of four overs.

Officers’ team captain FLTLT Wendell Fox said the shorter game was successful as it placed extra pressure on batsman and bowler alike to achieve their best scores. The result was a mix of hits to the boundary and falling wickets.

“There was more pressure to score runs quickly; hence the batsmen were very attacking. This resulted in boundaries but at the same time in plenty of poor shot selections and consequently more dismissals,” FLTLT Fox said.

The airmen, captained by WOFF Colin Thacker, won the toss and elected to bat on the fast pitch.
“[It] was bowler-friendly with plenty of bounce,” FLTLT Fox said.

They quickly achieved a flying start as WOFF Nelson Rapp, who top-scored for the airmen with 30 runs and LAC Jason Odea (25 runs) set the pace. However a late fall of wickets in the tail end had the team all out for 92 off just 17 overs.

Man of the match was FLTLT Derek Reinhardt who cleaned up the tail and finished with bowling figures of 4-12 for the officers’ team.

The airmen will attempt a come-back in an upcoming soccer match.

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