Too many Ollies are never enough
What a big week for Cam Merchant, who celebrated (though possibly not in this order) not only an excellent innings of 89 against St George, full of deft cuts and glides, but also the arrival of his first child with Jules Robinson. Five Things isn’t much of a follower of reality TV, watching – as a sort of professional duty – only just enough to keep up to date with the activities of the Manly Warringah Cricket Club. But the story, as we understand it, is this. Cam and Jules (Julie? Julia? Juliet? anyway) met on Married at First Sight where, not grasping the format at all, they forgot to cheat on each other with a personal trainer/model before embarking on an alcohol-and-Twitter-fuelled rampage, but actually liked each other, and then got married at second sight. Now, in a move that made the Daily Mail forget all about Donald Trump’s Covid-19 diagnosis for a day or two, they have welcomed a son, Ollie. And hearty congratulations to them. But, Ollie? We refuse to believe it’s a coincidence that the name was chosen in the week when Manly’s Ollie Davies followed his brutal Round One century with a run-a-ball 91 against St George. This kind of tribute in entirely in keeping with the spirit of Grade cricket. Although it’s sobering to think that had one of Merchant’s other team-mates been fit and in form, the kid might have been called Ahillen. Bullet dodged.
The Students need a deep bench
Sydney University began its match against Gordon already missing Hayden Kerr, Devlin Malone (both injured) and Will Masojada (stranded in South Africa) and its stocks fell even further on the second day when Nick Larkin flew to Adelaide with the NSW squad and Liam Robertson injured his knee in the warm-up. Yet the Students still had enough depth to account for a Gordon side depleted by several off-season departures. Larkin’s 83 was the backbone of University’s 286, the one surprise about the innings being that he didn’t press on to the kind of massive score he so often accumulates when in control. He received two short balls outside off in succession from Ash Premkumar; the first kept alarmingly low, but the second lifted, and Larkin chopped it onto his stumps. You could argue that University should have posted a taller score after reaching 2 for 159, but Gordon’s spinners bowled with skill and persistence to keep their side in the game. Gordon was well in the game on the second day, reaching 2 for 91 with Tym Crawford driving cleanly and confidently. But Ben Joy and Dugald Holloway both defied the lifeless pitch to take wickets in clusters, and University’s new recruit, Nivethan Radhakrishnan, dismissed two batsmen with his right arm and one with his left. For Gordon, left-hander Dylan Hunter delayed the inevitable with a fighting half-century. It was a workmanlike win for the Students, who now could really use a week with no more injuries.
Michael Tudehope may have been the MVP
He wasn’t, of course – that was Matt Gilkes from University of NSW, who smashed his sixth First Grade hundred and carried it on to his first double hundred, a round 200 against Western Suburbs from only 203 balls. Ten sixes, fifteen fours. Brutal, and brilliant. And yet (through no fault of his), not match-winning. Because David Phillips isn’t a road, it’s a four-lane highway, and when the ball goes soft – say, around the fifth over – bowling becomes a cruel and unforgiving task. The Bees’ bowlers found it difficult to exert any pressure on the second day, and Wests chased down their target of 368 with three wickets and a handful of deliveries to spare. Nick Cutler’s 125 was excellent in the chase, and Josh Clarke (50), James Psarakis (58) and Joel Abraham (57) all made important contributions. But you can make a cogent argument that the player who did most to win the game for Wests was seamer Michael Tudehope, who toiled through 22 overs on the first day to return the decidedly unglamorous analysis of one for 60. In a match when 760 runs were scored at a rate of 4.65 an over, the gangly right-armer operated at an economy rate of 2.72. We don’t usually think of economy rate as mattering much in two-day games, but if Tudehope had conceded runs at the same rate as the rest of the bowlers in the game, Wests would have had another 40-odd runs to chase, and that may have made all the difference.
Brock Larance enjoyed the week
The Grade Cricketer has always insisted that the most enjoyable feeling in cricket is scoring a hundred in a losing side. If there’s a bowler’s equivalent, then Campbelltown-Camden’s indigenous all-rounder Brock Larance hit the jackpot last weekend. Although the Ghosts fell 12 agonising runs short of Fairfield-Liverpool’s 256 in First Grade, Larance was outstanding, picking up 5-67 with his off-breaks, a haul that included State representatives Arjun Nair and Param Uppal as well as grizzled veteran Jarrad Burke. On Sunday, Bankstown edged out the Ghosts in the first round of the Harry Solomons Little Bash, but Larance had another day to remember, dismissing Jake Cormack, Daniel Nicotra and Aaron Bird with successive deliveries. The hat-trick ball was actually a low full toss, which a surprised Bird chipped straight back to the equally surprised bowler, who needed a couple of grabs to complete the catch. Larance is not yet 19, but has already had a rather meandering journey along the cricket pathways: Campbelltown is his third Premier Club (he had Green Shield stints with Randwick-Petersham and Fairfield-Liverpool), and he has also played in Dubbo and Port Macquarie, toured England with the Australian Aboriginals and been a fixture in the NSW Country junior representative teams. He made a tentative start to his First Grade career last season, but now looks set to make an impact.
NDs selectors are not easy to impress
And so to Second Grade, where Northern District Ranger Corey Miller hammered 262 against Hawkesbury from only 248 balls in just 259 minutes. Some clubs might have responded to that performance by picking Miller in the T20 match on the next weekend but no, at NDs, promotions need to be earned. And we do hear that Miller was a bit slow moving from 240 to 250. Anyway, for those fascinated by Second Grade records (and who isn’t?) Miller’s innings was the highest at that level for NDs (beating 237 by the left-handed opener, Angus Farncomb) and the fifth-highest in Seconds for any club. The record is still 278 not out, set in October 1904 by North Sydney’s ABS White against Manly (having dismissed Manly for 94, North Sydney then ran up the pointlessly massive total of 8 for 698, 21 of which came from the bat of future Test batsman Charles Macartney). White, whose given names were Alfred Becher Stewart, was always known by his nickname, “Stud”, the origins of which thankfully remain obscure. It may be some consolation to Miller to know that White made his first-class debut for New South Wales within twelve months of heaping misery on the Manly Twos.