Hoods fire into final against arch rivals

 By LARRY ANDREW

HOODS have set up another meeting with arch rivals Raukele in the Lae Cricket grand final by disposing of newcomers Friends United in the preliminary final on Sunday at the Uni1 Oval.

Winning the toss, skipper Richard Basada had no hesitation in batting first.

But they found the going tough against a fired-up Friends attack led by young guns Steven Ila and Emmanuel Vala.

Both bowled good line and length to restrict Hoods openers Jason Yama and Samuel Lui from scoring freely.

They had 16 runs on the board when Yama attempted a suicidal run and paid the price by being run out from a direct hit from Boniface Tangara for three runs to his name. 

Hoods ran into more problems with the next six batsmen not going past five runs each as the Friends attack applied pressure. 

Veteran William Maha (21) and Wayne Baloiloi (10) combined in a useful partnership of 29 runs that saw Hoods post a respectable score of 83 from their allotted 20 overs.

But things went bad for Friends in their innings as Ravu uprooted Kone Tau’s middle stump with the last ball of the first over with no runs scored.

Basada took two wickets in the second over, having Friends big hopes Nigel Topai stumped by Maha and Darryl Tangara lbw for one. Five wickets fell in a similar pattern and denied Friends batsmen from igniting their batting as they fell all out for 39 runs in 11.5 overs.

Ravu’s pace was the telling factor as the Friends batsmen found it hard to score runs off him.