Scott Rodgie ˃ Tym Crawford (this week anyway)
So Tym Crawford hit his third century in a row, this time 119 from 92 balls with five sixes. And, yes, it was at Chatswood, but that is still very, very impressive. Except, this week, not quite as impressive as Scott Rodgie, who batted through Northern District’s massive innings of 2 for 352 to hit a career-best, unbeaten 165 from 157 balls. Rodgie shared a rapid second wicket stand of 206 with Lachlan Shaw, who needed only 78 balls for his 114 – and, in the process, Rodgie took his career tally of First Grade runs beyond 11,000. To top it off, Rodgie played a role with the ball. Gordon reached 2 for 193, needing 160 from 20 overs with wickets in hand, Crawford in full flight, and Chatswood’s boundaries not getting any longer. Rodgie’s medium pacers are no longer as zippy as they once were, but even so he managed to deceive Crawford with a slower ball, who lobbed a catch back to the bowler rather in the way that a batsman in French cricket deliberately taps a catch to a very uncoordinated child. Just now, Crawford is playing exceptionally well – but, on Saturday, not quite as well as Rodgie.
Country cricket is… different
Congratulations to Wests and Manly for a couple of interesting collaborations this season. First, there was the Archer Gray Testimonial match, a great cause generously supported by the two clubs. Then, Wests and Manly took their Round 9 match to the bush, for a day-night encounter at Wade Park in Orange. It was an exciting contest, won by Wests by just 12 runs – but it was also memorable for a whole heap of reasons you wouldn’t usually expect. Top scorer for Wests was a batsman who made his first-class debut at the age of 14, and fled Afghanistan after the Taliban killed his father. Farhan Zakhail hit a vital 54 to boost Wests to a decent total after the middle order struggled against Joel Davies. Manly’s Lachlan Coyte made his First Grade debut for the club – in his home town, Orange, an event that he can’t possibly have anticipated when he went to play on the peninsula. In Manly’s innings, the first three batsmen fell to Hanno Jacobs and Muhammad Irfan without scoring and there were three first-ballers in the innings. Chasing 244, Manly looked dead and buried at 9 for 126, but Thomas Kaye (61 not out) and Josh Seward (58) then inexplicably added 106 for the last wicket, before Josh Clarke lured Seward into one stroke too many.
Jaiveer Singh Dhanoa looks interesting
In a steady, unfussy way, Mosman has climbed back into the top six, winning matches in the way they did en route to a premiership a couple of seasons back. They had too much experience for Fairfield, winning their encounter at Rosedale by 40 runs. But the most interesting performance of the day came from Fairfield’s medium pacer, Jaiveer Singh Dhanoa. Dhanoa played NSW Metropolitan Under-17s last season, and at first glance there’s not much too him. He’ slightly built, and his run up is so gentle it looks almost apologetic. There’s nothing very explosive about his release. And then, just when you start to think that he looks a bit plain, he slips a ball through Nick Browne’s defence, and the middle stump goes flying. Dhanoa ended up with four wickets – it will be interesting to see how he looks once he’s a touch older and stronger.
Parramatta looks strong again in Green Shield
That annual carnival of fresh-faced enthusiasm, the AW Green Shield, kicked off on Sunday, with Parramatta sending a powerful signal that it will once more be a force in this competition. Parramatta crushed Gordon by the tidy margin of 241 runs, largely because of a ferocious innings from Blake Noorbergen, who cracked 145 from 114 balls. Noorbergen, who’s in his third season of Green Shield, had a fairly decent weekend, as he whacked 100 from 103 balls in Third Grade on the Saturday. Noorbergen looks good – his defence is well-organised, he has a good range of back-foot scoring shots, he scores lots of singles and he punishes anything loose. Noorbergen’s previous Green Shield innings was a first-ball duck in last year’s final – which Parramatta won anyway. Their title defence couldn’t have got away to a better start.
Metro Cup is never dull
Five Things doesn’t often go to Metropolitan Cup, but maybe we should, because while the cricket there may be variable in standard, it’s always interesting. Take Saturday’s game between Penrith and Sutherland at Tonkin. Sutherland sent Penrith in to bat, and inside the first eight overs, Jack Logan and Joshua Watson reduced Penrith to 5 for 12 – and all of the first five batsmen dismissed failed to score. But they didn’t remove the number three batsman, Lachlan Hood, who counter-attacked so effectively that he reached 99. That meant that Penrith’s first six batsmen scored 0, 0, 99, 0, 0 and 0. There was an equally unusual game at St Andrew’s, where University of NSW failed to bat through its 50 overs, but reached 292 anyway. Sydney University stumbled to 2 for 31, but stormed home to reach its target with more than three overs to spare. Most of the damage was done by Tushar Sharma, whose 171 not out included a ridiculous 13 sixes.