Maccabi-AJAX men topple Indigos in A Grade cricket

MACCABI-AJAX’s First XI bowlers Josh Rostein (3/32) and Josh Jones (3/23) ripped through the Indigos’ batting line-up to help bowl them out for 114, to set up a big win in round 5 of the Mercantile Cricket Association’s Sunday A Grade competition last Sunday.

Maccabi only lost two wickets in their successful run chase, and maintained their second spot on the 8-team ladder.

In B grade, Maccabi-AJAX had a heavy loss against Kingston, but there were some green shoots.

Brett Jacobs batted superbly to finish undefeated on 38 runs, scoring almost half of his team’s total of 80. And two wickets each to bowlers Simon Fisher (2/15) and Shmuli Rosenbaum (2/9) gave them a sniff of a late comeback, but Kingston held on to win by 3 wickets.

The club’s Third XI also lost in C South grade, by 46 runs to the Melbourne Strikers.

Their bowlers did well to restrict the Strikers to 8/172, especially Barry Kave who took 4/22 in his excellent 9-over spell, but poor batting saw the team all out for 126 in reply.

Maccabi-AJAX’s young development team posted an impressive win against Malvern at Albert Park’s Warwick Armstrong Oval.

Malvern could only manage 9/121 with the bat, and were troubled most by Zac Onas (3/20), Kovi New (2/19) and Hayden Goldberg (2-31).

Maccabi were calm and confident in the chase, reaching 4/123 in the 38th over, with Simeon Goldenberg top-scoring with 44 runs off 55 balls.