Former Sydney University off-spinner, Will Somerville, who has returned to New Zealand to play with Auckland and the Black Caps, has taken his 100th first-class wicket. His 100th wicket was Wellington’s Devon Conway, in the Plunket Shield match at Wellington. Somerville made his first-class debut – also against Wellington – on 20 March 2005, so it took him 15 years and 241 days to reach 100 wickets. We thought this might be a record, so we consulted the guru, Steven Lynch – and it turns out that we were way off. Allan Border needed 17 years to get to 100 wickets, for example. But the longest gap between a first-class debut and a player’s 100th wicket turns out to be 27 years 277 days, by Conrad Johnstone, who bowled medium pace for Kent, Cambridge University and Madras between 1919 and 1948. Aren’t you glad you know that now?
When Tim Cummins caught Northern District’s David Lowery on Saturday, from the bowling of Ben Joy, it was his 300th catch in First Grade (170 of them for Penrith). His brilliant legside catch to remove Tom Felton was his 450th dismissal in all grades in Premier Cricket (377 caught and 73 stumped).
The match against Northern District was Damien Mortimer’s 150th First Grade game (52 for Campbelltown-Camden).
The match against Northern District was Kieran Tate’s 150th game for the club in all grades.
The T20 match against Penrith on Sunday was Dugald Holloway’s 150th game for the club in all grades.
During his spectacular innings in the T20 match against Penrith on Sunday, Liam Robertson took his tally of First Grade runs to 4579, passing Ian Fisher (4560) and Shane Stanton (4567) to become the club’s fifth-highest run scorer in the top grade, behind only Greg Mail, Ian Moran, Ed Cowan and Nick Larkin.
David Miller’s first run in Second Grade on Saturday was his 5000th run for the club in all grades. He becomes the 26th player to reach that milestone for the club in Premier Cricket (one other player, the Test all-rounder TW Garrett, also scored 5000 runs, but most of these were scored before the commencement of Grade cricket in 1893).
Ben Mitchell’s first wicket in the Poidevin-Gray match against Penrith on Sunday was his 50th for the club in all grades. After four rounds of Poidevin-Gray, Ben’s batting average in the competition stands at 120: 4 innings, 2 not out, 240 runs.
Jack Lawson’s 3-33 against Northern District on Saturday included his 50th wicket in Third Grade.
Jack Hill’s 86 in Third Grade against Northern District was his 30th score for the club over fifty (including 8 centuries).
During the Poidevin-Gray match with Penrith on Sunday, Nivek Tanner passed 2000 runs in Premier Cricket (1824 of them for University of NSW).
James Chan made his Fourth Grade debut against Northern District on Saturday.
Murray Miles made his 50th appearance in Fifth Grade in the match against Northern District on Saturday.
In Metropolitan Cup’s big win over Randwick-Petersham on Sunday, Ritvik Dinesh (71) recorded his first half-century for the club, and Tom Foreman (4-14) returned his best bowling figures for the club.