Opportunity for Eagles to soar in Bulls tussle

Returning home to George Parry Oval, Mona Park, and with inclement weather forecast for the weekend and grey skies above, the Eagles won the toss and elected to bat, taking advantage of what appeared to be a nice hard wicket.
Continuing on with their excellent form in getting the Eagles away to flying starts in every match this season, the opening pairing of Captain Asad Usman and Amanjyot Singh put on a 56-run opening stand, which came in just 42 balls. Singh was the first to go for a quick-fire 30 runs.
Usman, who has been in commanding form this season, continued his dominance of opposition bowling attacks scoring 63 runs, which included 10 fours and a six.
Making his First Grade debut and batting in the key No.3 spot, Anujan (AJ) Nagendiram displayed a lot of determination and patience facing 60 deliveries to steady the innings after the loss of the two openers.
Despite the early onslaught from the Eagles openers, Epping managed to slow the scoring rate with some tight spin bowling from both ends.
However, the Eagles pair of Peter Andonopoulos and allrounder Blake Pearson were able to get the team through the toughest part of the innings and runs began to flow again.
Andonopoulos was eventually dismissed for 35, with valuable contributions also being made by Sajjad Qaiser (34) and Gihan Ebert (23), which kept the scoreboard ticking over.
Blake Pearson produced an outstanding batting performance to be the rock of the Eagles batting, hitting balls to all parts of the oval, before eventually falling for 93, just short of a well-deserved century.
The Eagles declared at 8/304, leaving Epping with three overs to bat out the day’s play, which saw the Bulls 0/3 at stumps.
Lower Grade Scores: Second Grade: Auburn 7-214 (N Ross 66, A Young 48, J Khan 47, D Gulia 24) v Epping; Third Grade: Auburn 1/137 (J Singh 53no, J Goulding 41, B Thomas 387no) v Epping 135 (all out);
Fourth Grade: Auburn 2-11 v Epping 188 (all out);
Fifth Grade: No play due rain;
Metropolitan Cup: Auburn v Sydney University – Gold 220 (all out) (A Madra 7-77, H Mohamed 2-41); and Chappelow Cup: No play due to rain.