News Corp and Fairfax have combined to spank media agencies all over the park, as part of a T20 contest between agencies and owners played in aid of the UN LTD charity.
Yesterday saw the inaugural contest between media owners and agencies on the hallowed turf of Sydney University to see which side could wield the willow and come home with the bragging rights.
If yesterday was any indication though, media agencies have work to do over the winter months to get themselves prepared for next year's event.
Not even having Omnicom's Leigh Terry and Starcom's John Sintras officiating out in the middle saved the agencies.
The media agencies insisted it was a close-fought contest, those with a firmer grasp of mathematics would disagree.
While there was quite a bit of banter out in the middle, pre-match forecasts of a bumper-fest didn't eventuate, with players insisting that the pitch was too dead to extract any vicious bounce.
It could have been that there simply wasn't enough pace on show to get the ball above waist-height, however.
The media owners, led by captain Chris Freel of Fairfax posted 135 from their allotted 20 overs and while the agencies did complete their 20 overs, they could only post 89 in response for the loss of eight wickets.
While Philip Booth of Network Seven top scored for the owners with a crisp 29 runs off 19 deliveries, it was a 50-plus run partnership between captain Freel and Neil Robinson of News Corp which provided the backbone for the owners' innings.
The pick of the bowlers for the agencies was Luke Hutchinson from The Media Store, who claimed the tidy figures of 2/3 from his two overs.
In response, the agencies didn't put up much resistance and only some lusty hitting from the middle order kept the score responsible.
While Atsus' Tom Bartlam was the top scorer for the agencies with 25 runs, OMD's Mark Jarrett could claim the most powerful hitting game of the day, scoring the only maximum of the day from either side.
The chief destroyer for the owners was Gerard Doyle from Nine, who shone brightly in his one over taking three wickets for no runs, at one stage on a hat-trick.
Man of the match for the media owners was Booth, while Bartlam was named man of the match for the agencies.
However, the cricket was somewhat secondary to the main aim of the day, which was to raise cash for UN LTD, with both agencies and owners pitching in to raise more than $25,000 for the chairty, which helps address youth disadvantage.
Created with flickr slideshow.
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