It wasn’t Elijah Eales’ fault
So here’s how Elijah Eales’ Saturday went. He knocked the top off Northern District’s innings by striking twice in his third over. He wrapped up the innings with 4-27. He hit three sixes in his 51 not out. He lost.
He lost mostly because of Scott Rodgie, who batted all the way through the Rangers’ innings for 111 not out, then snuffed out a Mosman middle-order recovery with two quick wickets. Rodgie is becoming the Ian Moran of his generation – an all-rounder who’s been so good for so long that it seems odd that he never played much at higher levels. This was his 300th First Grade match, and this season (outside T20s) he averages 81 with the bat and 9 with the ball, which are simply ridiculous numbers. His form is the main reason why Saturday’s top-of-the-table clash was never much of a contest, and why NDs remain unbeaten with nine wins from as many games. Basically, Northern District could not turn up for the next six games, and still reach the finals in March. Not that we recommend it.
Ahillen Beadle still plays
Now in the twentieth year of his First Grade career, Ahillen Beadle has taken a while to get going – in his first six innings, he didn’t make it past thirty. But there’s plenty of life left in him, and after notching 93 not out against Bankstown before Christmas, he recorded his eleventh First Grade hundred against Fairfield-Liverpool. Manly was in all sorts of trouble at 3 for 24 before Beadle and Joel Davies, who’s half his age, repaired the damage with a stand of 171. Ryan Hadley and Greg West then shot out Fairfield’s top order, and the result ended up a lop-sided 172-run victory for Manly. Beadle’s experience (he passed 8500 runs in Firsts on Saturday) has been vital to Manly during the Big Bash.
The shape of the table is a worry
Even after two upsets on Saturday, Blacktown and Campbelltown-Camden continue to prop up the bottom of the First Grade ladder, and the four teams immediately above them are Hawkesbury, Fairfield-Liverpool, Penrith and Parramatta. And the club championship ladder isn’t all that different. In other words, the clubs that represent Sydney’s greatest population centres in the west, north-west and south-west are all performing poorly this season. Which is a worry, because if the game’s going to grow, this is where it needs to happen.
Of course, this is a snapshot of just one season. Most of these clubs have had powerful teams in the past, and will again. And they do continue to produce fine players – it’s just that they’re not quite so good at holding on to them. There’s no crisis yet – but this is something that the SCA should be watching with interest.
Anyway: the weekend’s upsets were a healthy sign. Campbelltown enjoyed its best moment of the season by outplaying a depleted Easts at Waverley, with the consistent Nick Appleton contributing a career-best 78. Campbelltown must be one of the few clubs that looks forward to playing away, given that games at Raby Oval get called off with such alarming frequency this season. And the Mounties surprised St George, building a solid total after a lively century by Harjas Singh and then defending it despite a ferocious 99 from Blake Nikitaras.
Gladys was spotted in Hobart
We wanted to present today’s Gladys Berejiklian Sudden and Unexpected Collapse of the Week Award to England, but we can’t, apparently, because (a) they don’t play in Premier Cricket and (b) their collapses are no longer unexpected. So, we did what you do in that situation and checked out how Sutherland’s Thirds went. As usual, they gave it their best shot, losing five for ten at the end of their innings against Gordon, but even that was a touch short of their catastrophic best. Actually, Gordon had a stab of its own, losing 5 for 15 at the back end – the wrecker was Christian Bennett, who had figures of 4-132 for the season, before grabbing 4-0 in his last spell. University of NSW was travelling comfortably in Seconds against Sydney University, reaching 1 for 48 before losing 5 for 7, which was quite outstanding. But this week’s winner is Mosman’s Fourths, who folded from the relative respectability of 5-109 to lose their last five wickets for five runs. Two things set this one apart: first, NDs proceeded to lose their first three wickets for seven runs, so between them the teams lost 8 for 12 in a rare Joint Gladys. Secondly, NDs then scraped home only through a last-wicket stand of 21, so who knows what difference another edged boundary might have made?
Those numbers all stand for something
Two years and counting into the Covid pandemic, all those numbers in the 9am announcements have lost their capacity to shock: so many cases, ICU cases, even deaths, seem to mean little after so long. Until you can put a name to them.
Former Wests and Randwick fast bowler Bob Barber had been battling a different kind of health crisis – throughout the pandemic, he’d been treated for leukaemia. He handled gruelling treatment (chemotherapy, bone marrow transplants) with unfailing optimism, good humour and gratitude for the care he received. But his condition meant he couldn’t be vaccinated, and when he contracted the Covid virus his body didn’t have the strength to withstand it. He died in hospital on 9 January.
Bob played for Combined Country against City in 1980-81 (dismissing Phil Marks) and joined Wests the following season. He was an unsophisticated fast bowler with an open chested action: when everything clicked, he bowled rapid inswingers, and the odd ball that landed on the seam and jagged away. One of his first wickets in the top grade was Peter Clifford, bowled through the gate by a quick one that swung sharply. When he was off form, he gave his wicket-keepers nightmares by spraying the ball down the leg side, and you could never be sure which Barber was going to show up. His form was so erratic that he bounced up and down the grades: once he spent a full year in Fourths before coming back to be Wests’ leading wicket-taker in Firsts the next season. 50 of his 289 wickets for the Magpies came in Firsts. He played a season with St George, and ended up at Randwick, where he helped to win a premiership in Thirds. But – and this is the point – there was nothing about Grade cricket that he didn’t love. Anywhere there was a group of old players talking garbage about the game, there you’d find Bob. As recently as late December, he was at a Wests reunion at Pratten Park. Next time, they’ll only be able to talk about him, not with him. Remember that when you hear the numbers tomorrow.