Damien Mortimer is back in the groove
Over the past five seasons, Sydney University’s Damien Mortimer has been one of the most consistent batsmen in First Grade, usually ending up with somewhere around a thousand runs to his name. He had a minor blip in form last season, despite (or possibly because of) a successful off-season in Ireland, but normal service has now been resumed. A former Australian under-19 captain, the compact right-hander always looks a high-class player, but has played less senior representative cricket than he might have, partly because although he passes fifty more often than anyone else, he has converted only eight of them into First Grade hundreds. The most recent came on the first day of Round Three, a polished 122 against Easts at University Oval. His innings showed all the hallmarks of the best of his batting – patience, impenetrable defence and sweet timing through the off side – besides which he set a new Premier Cricket record for Adjusting the Batting Gloves Between Deliveries. He treated Marcus Attallah brutally in the off-spinner’s first spell. Mortimer was eventually dismissed when he played for turn to a delivery from Attallah that skidded straight through, and a fine edge was held by keeper Harry Byrnes Howe. Byrnes Howe isn’t the tidiest-looking keeper on the circuit: he wears his shin pads under his pants and his shirts are so large that you suspect that both Byrnes and Howe are hiding in there somewhere. Byrnes Howe also opened the Easts innings, wearing his batting pads in the more conventional outside-the-trouser fashion, though he failed to get them or anything else behind a delivery from Ben Joy that nipped back and cartwheeled the off stump while the batsman shouldered arms. Joy then trapped Baxter Holt in front first ball to reduce Easts to 3-35, at which point the target of 330 looked well out of reach. There was a brief flurry from Tim Armstrong, who batted like a man with a train to catch, unfurling a series of meaty drives and slashes before deciding to attempt a defensive shot, and edging it. Once Armstrong was dismissed, there were only two possible winners, and one of them was the rain which, as it happened, had the last word.
Tushaar Garg has settled in
Tushaar Garg is not your everyday opening bowler. For one thing, he’s a former GPS public speaking champion, which means that there are only four or five Grade batsmen who have any chance of understanding his chat. He’s also a law student and the founder of a not-for-profit organisation whose name - Ethical Education - invokes two concepts that are completely unfamiliar to the great majority of new ball bowlers. Anyway, after eight seasons with Bankstown, Garg moved to Sutherland this season, filling a Tom Pinson shaped hole in the pace attack. Being a reflective sort of character, he must have questioned the wisdom of the move after the first two matches of the season, in which his bowling was slaughtered mercilessly. Gabriel Joseph and Nick Bertus plundered 71 runs from his 10 overs against Parramatta, after which he managed only one for 77 from 13 against his former club. But Sutherland, and Garg, persisted, and they were rewarded with a remarkable spell of 6-35 against Campbelltown-Camden. The Ghosts’ openers actually knocked up 35 runs in the first half hour, before Garg had Jayden Zahra-Smith caught at cover (Zahra-Smith has replaced Jaydyn Simmons in the side, complying with the competition By-Law that requires Campbelltown to field at least one Jayden or Jaydyn in every round). That triggered a collapse in which five wickets fell for 13 runs. Garg conceded 14 runs from his first three overs; then he grabbed 4 for 10 in 20 balls, including two with successive deliveries in his sixth over. His pace isn’t alarming, but he bowled a very tidy off-stump line, found some awkward bounce, and did enough off the seam to trouble all the batsmen – a highly appropriate method for Glenn McGrath Oval. He ended the innings with career-best figures and set up six points for Sutherland on the opening day of the game.
SOK could break a few records this season
In case you’re wondering, the record for most wickets in a First Grade season by a Manly-Warringah player is 67. Mark Cameron did that. The record for most wickets in a First Grade season by a Manly-Warringah left-arm finger spinner who had previously represented NSW is the 66 Mike Pawley piled up in Manly’s premiership season of 1973-74. Both numbers are under serious threat this season, depending on how deeply Steve O’Keefe’s T20 commitments impact upon his club commitments. O’Keefe routed St George in the opening game, taking 6-36; in Round Two, he helped Manly to defend a sub-total of 142 by grabbing 5-16 from only eight overs. There wasn’t a great deal of deceptive flight on show, as O’Keefe pushed the ball through quickly on a flat trajectory, but he has mastered the art of bowling round the wicket and straightening the ball just enough to find the outside edge – the result of which was that Penrith’s batsmen presented Cameron Merchant with three catches at slip. In an interview he gave during the week, O’Keefe explained that he knows “how to manage my body to bowl 30 overs a day. I’m glad my performances have shown that.” Except, actually, they haven’t – he needed to bowl only 48 balls against Penrith. Penrith would have been ecstatic if they’d stayed out there long enough to make him bowl 30 overs. There may be longer spells ahead, but already O’Keefe has 13 wickets at an average of 7. Quite apart from breaking records, he could very well propel Manly back into playing in the finals.
Michael Sullivan made a memorable start
Michael Sullivan played for eight seasons, and exactly 100 games, for Parramatta before he was called up to make his First Grade debut against Fairfield-Liverpool. In truth, he had never mounted a very compelling case for earlier promotion: while he has turned out 33 times in Second Grade, the right-arm seamer managed only 34 wickets in those appearances. He was graded in Seconds this season, after some penetrative spells in Thirds last year, but went wicketless in Round One. In Round Two, though he celebrated his 100th game for his club by taking his first five-wicket haul – 5-69 against a UTS North Sydney team that hammered every other bowler. That earned him a call-up to Firsts, where he made an instant impact, removing Yuvraj Sharma and Jaydyn Simmons in his opening spell. He returned later in the day to wrap up the innings, finishing with the impressive figures of 5-33. Rain cut short what would have been an interesting chase on the second day, but that wouldn’t have taken too much of the gloss from Sullivan’s debut. Right now, he leads the bowling averages in the First Grade competition, 0.31 runs ahead of Steve O’Keefe.
St George bats deep in Seconds
For about an hour and a half, things were looking so good for the Blacktown Mounties. Matt Day, their experienced Second Grade captain, had a careful look at the Harold Fraser pitch and decided it was lively enough to invite St George to bat. His judgment was vindicated when the Saints collapsed to 5 for 56, with the sixth wicket falling only 16 runs later. That brought together Max Farmer, a 17 year old wicket-keeper playing his second innings in Grade cricket, and Jono Craig-Dobson, a useful-ish lower order batsman whose highest score in 116 Premier Cricket matches was a 69 in Fourths. That unlikely pair not only set about repairing the innings, but went on to rewrite the St George record book, adding 198 runs for the seventh wicket. Farmer showed exceptional patience, batting for four and a half hours for his 105 and reaching his century with a neat cut past cover for three. Craig-Dobson fell within a single stroke of his own maiden hundred, falling for 94 from 182 deliveries. St George recovered to reach 297 and looked set to claim the points before rain intervened. Farmer, a Maitland product, played with a level of maturity that suggests he could be a very interesting prospect.