Park went into the game knowing Eltham are always one of our bogey sides. Sven Fowdy stuck Eltham in on a less than friendly batting wicket at Footscray. Paul Moss and Davie Partridge opened the bowling both again showing how tight they can be with Paul with figures of 10-7-10-0 and Dave in his spell of 10-2-32-1. We kept the runrate down further with the next two bowlers Craig(3/33) and Lingo(0/23) both bowling 7 overs. John 'Pirate' Norton replaced Lingo playing and bowling for the first time this season and he went on to do a fine job taking 1/16 off 5 overs well supported by Sven Fowdy at the other end who again nipped on for 3/19 off of 6 overs, so Park kept Eltham down to a minimum 139/8 off of 45 overs with Park again fielding very well.
So it was up to Park's batting to push Eltham for victory we started off reasonably well with Fletch and Al Horton having a 17 run partnership before Fletch was out for 6. Timus Gannon was next but fell very quickly for 0 with Dave Weston also making his first appearance surviving for 12mins before he was clean bowled for 1. So Park were in trouble at 27/3. Dave Bru was next in putting on a good partnership of 48 with Al Horton at the other end before Al was out with a shooter after scoring a credible 39. Sven fowdy was next.
After having a little chat with his skipper, Bru was instructed to keep his head with Park needing 5 an over, he obviously miss heard the skipper and crashed the next ball straight to square leg and was caught for 13. Johnnie Norton came in at 7 scoring 4 with Craig in next. Sven Fowdy got the same ball as Al Horton and this time he was LBW. So Park now needed 50 off of just 8 overs but with only 3 wickets to spare. Next in was Lingo who had a quick fling getting out for 1 then Dave partridge was out for a duck and now Park were in the mire at 92/9 and staring defeat in the face. With 5 overs to spare Elthams tails were up, the skipper Sven instructed fiery Moss to keep calm and show the lads how to dead bat that ball and off he went. Now the other lads were thinking "what will he do with that first ball, take a run down the pitch and smash it over the bowlers head or just miss it completely" the skipper had every faith in the rejuvenated Paul, and Paul (4 n/o) and Craig (11 n/o) played out the remaining overs like two top class openers finishing on 105/9 to give Park a draw and yet again frustrate our opponents. Again with Park batting second trying to chase a low target we were our own worst enemies when we were in good wining position.
A bit of a surprise hear, although Craig bowled (3/33) and batted well at the end (11 n/o) and Al Horton again continued his great form (39) it goes to the excellent Paul Moss who not only bowled 10 overs for 10 runs and had 7 maidens and was unlucky not to get any wickets he also batted superbly to earn us a draw.