Round 5 - Stingrays v Gamblers at Fever Pitch (completed)

Stingrays v Gamblers

Stingrays: Dafter, Morgan*, Martyn, Fung†, Logan, Lee, Das, Rask, James, Cambridge, Ikram

Gamblers: Burridge, O'Neill†, Herd, Gemmell*, Hornby, Popovic, B. Read, Tyson, Taylor, Man, Yates

The Gamblers head to Fever pitch in what shapes to be an exciting and season deciding game for both teams. So far this season, the Gamblers have annihilated the Sticky Wickets and had narrow 14 and 15 run losses to the Vipers and Cyclones. While they're only 1 & 2, their quotient sits at 1.27, only 0.01 lower than the best one. The Stingrays, on the other hand, also sit and 1 & 2, having suffered regulation losses to the Vipers and Allstars and a comfortable win against the Stickies. Home pitch advantage sees the Stingrays favourites albeit only slightly for this game.

Both teams carry significant risk; the Gamblers in Morgan Burridge - a supremely talented but underperforming opener, Chocolate Man - a former great who's well on the decline and Samuel Yates - an older paceman who took a sabbatical for a season or two and the Stingrays in David Dafter - a fringe first grade player for seasons now who's been slack with training, Zohaib Ikram - a recent promotee who upon his promotion seems to have become complacent and toned down his training load and an unproven middle order in Soumyanil Das, Truman Lee and Jordan Logan. The Herald believes that the fate of this match will not be decided by the plethora of stars both sides contain but the relative fringe players and risks they possess. Whichever side's strugglers and ring-ins perform the best will probably guide them to the win.

Morgan Burridge is the one to watch. Often compared to an opening version of Mohammad Ashraful, Burridge is widely known to possess talent that few do. Application has proven a problem for him though, and since bursting onto the scene he's found himself bouncing between grades. Today he finds himself with another chance, and possibly a final one. He decides his own fate - whether he'll give the selectors a nightmare or doom himself to second grade eternally.

The Cricsim Herald predicts the Gamblers will eventually get across the line in a close encounter, winning by 3 wickets/25 runs. Morgan Burridge will give the selectors a nightmare though by scoring a wonderful counter attacking first innings century while the wickets fall around him.