BATTING:
With only a few rounds remaining the battle for the batting awards is heating up with Nick Larkin and Liam Robertson going head to head for the H.O. Rock Award for Best Batting Aggregate.
BOWLING:
Whilst Nigel Cowell looks home and hosed for the Michael O'Sullivan Award for Best Bowling Aggregate. Kieran Tate is the big mover on the list, now in (very distant) striking distance, however locked in a tight bowl-off with Jack Gibson for the James Rodgers Award for Best Bowling Average.
We are fast approaching the end of the season, and with that comes our final two events for 2015/16.
On Tuesday 29th March, we will host our "Beat The Skippers" Trivia Night at The Grandstand Bar & Function Centre. This is the opportunity to take down our illustrious captains in the intellectual stakes, in a fun-filled night of entertainment. We will give a prize on the night for the most creative trivia team name, so start getting your teams together now!
We are excited to announce a shake up to our annual Awards Night, with a vibrant new format in a funky new location. Further details will follow shortly, but please confirm your dates, book the babysitters and save Saturday 16th April to join us to celebrate the close of 2015/16 in style.
Promotional material and booking information will be released for both events early next week.
You can never tell who might turn up in Third Grade
There’s no doubt what the big Grade cricket story was last weekend – all the attention was on a former Australian Test player, returning to a lower level of the game for the first time in years. Yes, when Sydney University’s Tom Decent pulled his hamstring and was unable to take the field for the second half of the Third Grade match against Hawkesbury, the player who answered the call for a substitute fieldsman was NSW Blues opener Ed Cowan. Ed last took the field in Thirds as a 16 year old back in 1998-99, when he belted 61 and disappeared upwards and onwards towards a baggy green cap. Settling in at second slip, Cowan introduced himself to the players he hadn’t met and buzzed around the field providing the young University side with a lesson in maintaining enthusiasm and focus – as well as providing captain Henry Clark with some handy suggestions on field placings. About 20 overs into the innings, Liam Robertson walked up from Firsts to offer to take over in the field, only to be sent back down the hill, as Ed insisted that he wanted to be there to celebrate the win by singing the club song. Unfortunately, he missed out on that – Hawkesbury was still nine down when University’s late-order collapse in Firsts made it necessary for Cowan to head back to Number One Oval. But if you’re looking for examples of club spirit and sheer enjoyment of the game, this one’s hard to beat.
Cowan about to celebrate with Jack Gibson with a sharp chance to Henry Clark at 1st slip for his first wicket of the innings. Buzzing is an understatement for the young players!
Wests are off the mark
There was an interesting game at Pratten Park, too – the highlights of which were Umpire Greg Lill’s 400th match in First Grade and an outstanding effort by Wests’ opening bowlers James Shepherd and Geoff Ashmore to defend a modest total of 209 against Randwick-Petersham. Lill’s career as an umpire included only two Sheffield Shield matches, scant reward for such a dedicated and reliable official, but his tally of 400 First Grade games is a record for Sydney cricket, and throughout Australia has been matched only by Bill Sheahan in Melbourne. Ashmore and Shepherd have toiled hard through a challenging season, and their persistence and determination finally paid off on Sunday.
Oh, OK, some bloke called Clarke turned out for Wests, too. But this is Five Things We Learned, not Five Things We Knew Already. Clarke is still good enough to score runs in First Grade – no surprises there – and he’s still loyal to the club that brought him into Grade cricket. Whether he can summon the motivation, fitness and form to take things further remains to be seen. In the meantime, his young team-mates will benefit from playing alongside him, and bowlers like Sam Doggett and Daniel Sams will have stories to tell about the time they dismissed a former Australian captain. All of which is very healthy for Grade cricket.
Ryan Gibson is still on the rise
By his own very high standards, Campbelltown-Camden’s Ryan Gibson has had a relatively quiet season – before last weekend, he had been solidly consistent for his club but had converted only one of several good starts into a century (and that against North Sydney, whose bowlers concede more runs per wicket than any other attack in the competition). Blacktown may not have the most ferocious attack in Sydney, but its bowlers are experienced and effective, and reduced Campbelltown-Camden to 3 for 62 before Gibson took control of the game. Facing 238 deliveries, he hit an unbeaten 204, with 12 fours and three 6s. He beat his own record for the highest First Grade score in the club’s history, passing the 191 he scored against Sutherland last season. Already under contract to the Blues, Gibson looks set to receive more opportunities in the near future.
Nigel Cowell had a good week
Sydney University fast bowler Nigel Cowell had a week to remember, joining the NSW Sheffield Shield squad for the first time, then taking a wicket with his first delivery against Hawkesbury, which also made him the 21st bowler to take 300 wickets for Sydney University. Cowell went on to slice through the Hawkesbury top order, generating good pace and nipping the ball away from the bat. He was well supported by smart catching, especially from Will Hay at first slip (who followed a useful 50 with three deft catches), the agile Ryan Carters (who hauled in a gloved hook shot high down the leg side) and the sure hands of Ben Joy in the outfield. Cowell finished with 6-46, which ought to have made University convincing winners – except that a defiant and implausible last wicket stand of 84 in 81 minutes between Jay Dyball and Shane Mott hauled Hawkesbury to within two strokes of an unlikely upset. As it was, Tim Ley put an end to the partnership, giving Greg Mail his 200th win in a First Grade match – only the second player to achieve this, although he remains 56 wins behind the record-holder, the indestructible Ken “Emu” Hall of Penrith and Bankstown.
Nigel Cowell sends a vicious short ball through to Ryan Carters against Hawkesbury in Round 13 action at Uni Oval No. 1.
350 is the new 250
There was a time when a score of 350 made a team more or less invulnerable – no longer. University of NSW was unable to defend 359 against Easts, after evergreen Ian Moran compiled a magnificent 103, during which he passed Paul Maratziotis to become the sixth-highest run scorer in First Grade history. Manly felt comfortable enough to declare at 4 for 330 against Parramatta, only to be overhauled within 73 overs after William Affleck and Brenton Cherry shared an opening stand of 218. And Penrith, after amassing 342, squeaked home against Sutherland by only two runs.
Nigel Cowell had a memorable week, joining the NSW Sheffield Shield squad for the first time, and taking his third five-wicket haul in First Grade, a match-winning 6-46 against Hawkesbury. He also collected his 300th wicket for the Club when dismissed Hawkesbury opener Brent Atherton with the first delivery of Hawkesbury’s innings. He became the 21st bowler in the Club’s history to reach 300 wickets.
Greg Mail recorded his 200th win as a player in the weekend's match against Hawkesbury.
Josh Toyer moved into 22nd place on the Club’s list of wicket-takers with 298 (passing Alan Baigent on 297) when he dismissed Hawkesbury’s Third Grade opener, Jarod Brent, with the second ball of the innings.
Nick Larkin and Liam Robertson both passed 600 runs for the Club for the season.
Will Hay’s 50 in First Grade was his 20th half-century in Firsts, three of which he converted into hundreds.
Kieran Tate’s outrageous figures of 6-4 in Second Grade were his best in Seconds, his best for the Club and his third five-wicket haul of the season.
Lewis McMahon took his 100th wicket for the Club when he bowled veteran Hawkesbury batsman Dean Laing in Third Grade.
Tom Decent’s 79 against Hawkesbury in Third Grade (most of it scored on one leg) was his second half-century, and highest score, for the Club.
Jack Gibson (3-26) improved on his best bowling figures in Third Grade.
Ryan Danne (4-18) returned his best bowling figures in Fourth Grade.
BATTING:
BOWLING:
We’re going to quotients
Three rounds out from the qualifying finals, the top end of the First Grade competition table is so badly congested that it seems inevitable that the last couple of places will be decided by quotients. Bankstown looks comfortably placed at the top, six points clear of Penrith and Sydney, with premiers Manly surging up to 41 and Campbelltown on 40. But then it gets really interesting, with six teams on 36 (and Easts on 35). This should create some interesting tactical decisions over the next few weeks – is it better, for example, for a side batting first to lose wickets trying to add quick runs late in the day, or bat more sedately and not damage its for-and-against? Adding thirty runs while three wickets fall might give the bowlers more runs to defend, but adding fifteen runs without losing a wicket improves the quotient. In practice, teams very rarely think like this – they play to win, and let quotients take care of themselves. But if (as seems very possible), someone misses out on the finals by 0.09 on quotient, it will be hard to resist looking back at places where that extra few runs might have been found.
Manly isn’t going quietly
Current premiers, Manly, had a dismal start to the season, losing its first three matches. But in Round 12, Manly firmly grasped a top-four place by accounting easily for Sydney, who had led the table for so much of the season. Manly’s top five – Jack Ritchie, James and Adam Crosthwaite, Ahillen Beadle and Jay Lenton, is efficiently productive, while Beadle, Michael Visser and Nick McLachlan have led the attack. Manly is starting – at the right end of the season – to resemble the ruthless side that claimed last season’s title.
Jono Cook can bat, too
Last round we mentioned how well Wests’ new recruit, Jonathan Cook, has performed with the ball this season, and the leg spinner’s four wickets against Bankstown gave him 16 from his four games since Christmas. On Saturday, he went in to bat at five for 124, with Wests only fifty ahead in its second innings and Bankstown headed for an outright victory. In just over two hours, Cook hammered three sixes and 13 fours, adding 197 with Chris Ridley (110 not out) and reaching his first century in Sydney First Grade. He seems to think it’s quite an easy game at the moment.
Don’t expect bowlers to break many records this season
Last year, Manly’s Nick McLachlan was the leading bowler in First Grade with 50 wickets; the season before, it was Sydney University’s Nigel Cowell with 62. With three rounds remaining before the finals, the leading bower in First Grade is Easts’ spinner Shane Devoy, who has 32 victims so far. Even though in theory he could play six more games, it seems highly unlikely that he’ll get to fifty wickets. In fact, generally, this is shaping up as the bleakest season for bowlers since 1989-90, when rain reduced the number of days played to such an extent that no-one managed more than 37 wickets. Of the fifty leading wicket-takers in First Grade, almost one-third have bowling averages above thirty, and two have averages over forty. Conclusion: it has not been a great vintage for bowlers.
Selections get interesting now
This time of year raises complicated selection problems, as clubs do their best to get the strongest teams possible qualified for the finals. Usually, this means that a player needs to play three of the last five games in a particular grade (or a lower one). With that in mind, and without suggesting that any club would do anything dishonourable or unfair, it’s time to consider the teams most likely to be stacked. Take, for example, Western Suburbs’ Thirds – a team that has performed extremely well this season and sits in fourth place. Let’s suppose that next week, someone in that side hits 160 not out – is there any chance that he’ll be promoted to Wests’ Seconds, who are currently 19th? Similar questions will trouble Penrith’s selectors – there’s not much incentive to promote a player from Fourth Grade (who are fourth) to Thirds (18th). And Randwick’s Fifth Grade (sixth) will be in no hurry to lift players in Fourths (16th). Equal problems arise, of course, in clubs who are in contention in three or four grades, where there’s a need to balance fielding the best possible teams with the need to qualify enough players for each final.
At the end of Round Twelve, Mark Faraday, Nick Larkin and Will Hay are clustered together in the club’s all-time list of leading run-scorers. Faraday is in 8th place on 6156 runs, Nick Larkin ninth on 6146 and Hay tenth on 6135.
Jack Holloway (2-46) took his first wickets in Second Grade against University of NSW.
Tom Galvin (51) celebrated his debut for the club with his first half-century, in Third Grade.
Liam Whitaker has taken his 50th wicket for the Club.
