On a very hot day at Rosewood oval, Barkers won the toss and elected to bat.
The two young quick vets opening bowlers (Draco, J Hobson) started off quite well bowling a pretty good line and length. However it became apparent pretty quickly that we were up against some quality opposition. The barkers opening batsman (Newton) showed serious class, I for one haven't seen the likes of it in this competition before.
He played shots all around the wicket which meant it was very hard to set a field to, coupled with a fast outfield and flat deck he proved to be a formidable force and batted almost the entire innings before getting run out for (151) on the 35th. He also had good support from his two batting partners who both scored 40's, and Barkers ended up with a daunting total of 2/261. Figures probably aren't worth mentioning but Hunter and S. Hobson put together a reasonable bowling partnership during the middle part of the innings to somewhat stem the flow of runs.
After having a long hot day in the outfield chasing the ball to all parts of the oval, the vets were tired and morale was low. It got even lower when the first 4 vets batsmen all got out for single figures, and the vets were 4/18 off 9. Le couter never gave up hope and made good use of the flat deck to score a nice 50. Along with Hunter (22) the pair showed some good resistance but the vets were never really in the game and ended up being all out for 124.
There wasn't really much to take out from the game apart from the fact that the two youngsters got some experience bowling to a quality batsman, and will apply that experience into the many years of cricket they left ahead of them. We all agreed that the start and the end of the proceedings went well eg. Fielding 11 players, and having cold beers in the esky to drink afterwards. Its just the middle part of the day 'the match' that needs some work.