Sydney Uni continued its early season form in Premier Grade matches against Randwick-Petersham in Round Three action of the McDonald's Grade Competition on Saturday, before comprehensively accounting for Parramatta and Fairfield-Liverpool in the Kingsgrove Sports T20 Cup on Sunday.
First Grade toiled hard in the field and will be relatively pleased with holding Randy-Petes to 8-308 at the close of play, especially considering there was over 3,500 runs scored across all first grade matches, and that many totals were closer to the magical 400 mark. Nigel Cowell was the chief wicket-taker, claiming 5-71.
Wickets fell slowly but steadily throughout the Second Grade bowling innings, with Joe Kershaw sending down an impressive 21 over to finish with a miserly 2-39, whilst Josh Toyer claimed three wickets and Dave Miller with twp wickets. Randy-Petes finished with 229 runs and Sydney Uni finished play on 1-18 after losing Ben Larkin in the closing overs.
Third Grade also lost the toss and were sent into the field and would be pleased with holding the opposition to 258 runs on a flat St Paul's track, with only five of the Randy-Petes batters reaching double figures. Three wickets to Xavier Frawley, two to Kieran Tate and two run outs helped stifle the runs.
The AJ Grant led Fourth Grade side bucked the trend by winning the toss, but were still in the field, performing well to contain Randy-Petes to 227 runs by the close of play. Wickets were shared between youngsters Jake Day (3-39), Lewis McMahon (2-28) and Will Clayton (2-41).
Fifth Grade completed the set of Sydney Uni grade sides in the field, with Jack Gibson still in fine form to have Randy-Petes reeling at 3-7 before a 160-run partnership gave the Uni side a tricky total of 210 runs to chase. Gibson finished with a superb 5-wicket haul. Sydney Uni have begun their chase disastrously though closing play at 3-10 and a big partnership needed to get them close next weekend.
In Metro Cup, a Carfax, this year Patrick Jnr, has continued scoring runs at will, hitting 75 runs in the teams total of 201. Tom Hamblin joined in for 47 runs of his own. Randy-Petes Gold were 0-10 in reply.
Sunday also saw Rounds Two and Three of the Kingsgrove Sports T20 Cup with excellent wins against Parramatta and Fairfield-Liverpool.
NSW star Ryan Carters led the scoring in both matches with 39 runs and 61 runs respectively. Batting first in the first match, Sydney Uni pushed to a total of 5-120 before bowling Parramatta out for 90 runs. Two wickets a piece to Liam Robertson, Jonte Pattison, Tim Ley and Nigel Cowell helped secure the win.
Setting a daunting total of 6-156, with fellow NSW squad member, Nick Larkin, also belting 60 runs, the Students again constricted the opposition batting to bowl Fairfield-Liverpool out for 104 runs in reply, Ben Joy the destroyer with 4-11.
Some solid run-chases will be needed next weekend to continue the early season march towards the Club Championship, whilst the final round of the T20 Cup against Wests will hopefully see Sydney Uni finish atop of the Thunder conference for a second straight season and book a place in the semis.