Apparently Jack Preddey bats now
Jack Preddey is now in his fifth season with Eastern Suburbs (after stints with Campbelltown and RPs), and for most of that time you’d have ranked his batting as somewhere between nearly-an-all-rounder and handy-in-the-lower-order. Last season, he made some useful runs in the bottom half of the order, without reaching fifty once in 16 innings. But last Saturday, he promoted himself to number six, and played an innings that suggested he’s capable making a stronger impact with the bat. Easts were down and (almost) out. University of NSW, batting first, had posted a decent total of 7-277, with Tom Scoble hitting 73 and the impressively consistent (and consistently impressive) Jack Attenborough reaching 64. In reply, Easts lost 3-43, and had recovered only slightly to 5-112 when Declan White held a return catch from Angus Robson. At that point, Easts still needed 166 from 144 balls, which seemed a pretty hopeless task. Preddey and Udit Mehta steadied the innings, but only 14 runs came from the next six overs, making the target 152 from 108. But then Preddey began to accelerate, and started to clear the boundary. 12 runs came from the 38th over, 13 from the 39th, 11 from the 40th, 11 from the 41st. Preddey hit only two fours in his innings, but lashed six sixes, and by the time Hayden McLean took the ball for the last over, Easts needed only six to win. Preddey hit twos from the second, third and fourth balls to finish an improbable chase with two deliveries in hand, remaining unbeaten on 98 (from 79). Preddey has now played 147 Premier Cricket innings without scoring a century. We suspect this won’t be his last opportunity.
Nick Bertus still bats
On yet another day when the New South Wales top order collapsed, Nick Bertus took yet another opportunity to remind anyone watching just how good a batsman he can be. Batting wasn’t easy at Chatswood Oval, but Gordon’s modest total of 171 looked pretty good when Parramatta slumped to 6-68. But Bertus was still there, and with support from Jacob Workman and Hayden Goulstone, he worked Parramatta back into contention. The run rate was never a problem, so it was a restrained and disciplined innings for the most part, although Bertus did allow himself the luxury of smacking three successive boundaries from Ben Parsons. Bertus was run out for 74 with Parramatta in sight of its target, but Owen Simonsen and Luke Hodges finished the job with nearly four overs in hand. Bertus’ career for the Blues was brief and unfulfilled, but innings like the one he played on Saturday raise the question of how he might have performed if allowed an extended run in the side.
The British are coming
One outcome of the Covid pandemic has been that, over the past couple of seasons, the flood of English county players to Premier Cricket slowed down to a trickle. Now there are signs that they’re starting to return, like Christmas beetles and mosquitos, at the start of summer. Tom Lammonby of Somerset has lobbed into Manly with a glowing reputation as a batsman and… well, not much reputation at all as a bowler. Yet it was with the ball that he made his first impact, bowling left arm seamers at a respectable clip. He persuaded Josh Clarke to play around his pads, winning an lbw decision, then hit the top of Oliver Hing’s off stump, finishing with 2-26 from 8 overs. Defending 170, Wests were in the game when Manly lost 4-62, but Lammonby and Joel Davies then built a critical partnership. Lammonby played well enough for his wristy 23, but was overshadowed by Joel Davies, who compiled a matchwinning 70 from 119 deliveries in only his third innings in the top grade. The compact left-hander played with impressive maturity before dabbing hard-working Jack Bermingham to Hing behind the stumps. Meanwhile, at Glenn McGrath Oval, Lachlan Hearne’s century for Mosman was scored in partnership with Jordan Cox, a well-regarded keeper-batsman from Kent, who remained unbeaten on 70. Cox turned out for Easts when he last played in Sydney.
La Nina is Spanish for washout
The most significant event of the week occurred, not on the field, but in the office of the Bureau of Meteorology, where whoever is responsible for these things declared a La Nina event. Now, there’s lots of science that goes into this, but we did Latin for five years at school, so we’re not exactly trained scientists, and it makes absolutely no sense at all to us. What it seems to mean, though, is that we can expect it to rain. A lot (and even, it seems, in India). We’ve already lost the whole of round two of the T20 Little Bash, and there’s rain forecast for at least the next two weekends. The more usual rain patterns often impact the closing month of the season, but this time around the luck of the weather seems likely to play a part throughout the competition. Time to upgrade those covers, maybe.
We have a contender…
The Gladys Berejiklian Sudden Collapse of the Week Award goes to Easts’ Fourth Grade side. Facing a testing target of 236 against University of NSW, Easts began well enough, reaching 1-37 after eight overs. But then it all went very Gladys, very quickly. Mitchell Law removed Oliver White. Oliver Maxwell (who surely ought to be playing quite a bit higher than Fourth Grade) tapped a single, but in the next over hit a catch straight back to Ed Walker. Luca La Costa missed his first ball of the season and was ruled lbw. After Law bowled a maiden to Nick Farrar, Walker was removed from the attack and replaced by Arunav Duggal. Farrar was run out from the first ball of the over, and Duggal then had Max Cotter caught from his next. Five top-order wickets had fallen for only one run in the space of 19 balls. We can look forward to plenty more collapses this season, but surely this one sets the benchmark.