Maryborough was again able to send a full team with a few spectators each day for the annual cricket carnival in Ararat.
Our team was made up of four members of the Young Achievers group, one ABS worker and five AIS clients each day.
As always the team was very excited to participate and had been honing their skills in the preceding month.
We played Warracknabeal first up and our top order batters put on a great display, finding the boundary on many occasions. As is always the case with matches with Warracknabeal the game was played in great spirit, and although the opposition performed well, Maryborough was victorious by around 15 runs.
After lunch we played another very friendly match against St Arnaud who won the game narrowly with a fair bit of encouragement from the umpire. Ararat’s unpredictable weather again threw up a challenge or two in the form of windy rain squalls which briefly disrupted play.
On Thursday we played Skene Street Specialist school (from Stawell) who were very enthusiastic opponents. Their opening bowler caught Bec’s shoulder with a ball that a baseball pitcher would have been proud of and stopped the game momentarily. Once the stinging subsided in Bec’s shoulder we continued with some modification to his bowling technique.
Maryborough batted well but it was our bowlers 10 wicket haul that saw us comfortable winners in this match.
Our final game was against Ararat which presented our biggest challenge for the competition. Ararat batted first and posted a daunting total. Our batters started impressively with some great hitting from Bec, Callum (one mighty six), Blair and Brent. The team played very well but fell short of the target.
This year’s carnival was definitely more about participation and having fun than results, but our team came away feeling very pleased with their efforts.
An all team photo was taken which was applied to a mug and presented to each team at the close of the competition. Each player also received a participation certificate to take home.
This event is very much enjoyed and several of our team have already asked to go again next year.
It is always a pleasure to be involved in this event which brings so much enjoyment and satisfaction to our clients.
