Five Things We Learned from Round Nine

Blacktown has a handy recruit

Because Australia hardly ever plays against Bangladesh, you could be forgiven for not having much of an idea who Mominul Haque is – even though he has played 75 Tests and scored almost 5000 runs.  He bats left-handed, bowls left arm spin with a curiously low action, and if you’re at all curious you can see him turning out for the Blacktown Mounties this season.  Mominul had a memorable first game at Joe McAleer.  After St George raced away to 1 for 82, he applied the brake with ten nagging overs in which he collected 3-34, and he hit five 4s in his brisk 27 after Blacktown lost two early wickets.  Despite Puru Gaur’s 82, Blacktown’s last pair (Smit Raval and Harjit Singh) still needed to score 16 runs from the last three overs, then ten from the last.  Needing two to win from the final delivery, Harjit banged the ball to the long-on fence to seal the game.  Incidentally, every member of the Blacktown side was of south Asian heritage, an interesting reflection of the demographics of western Sydney.

Nick Stapleton learned that it’s a silly game

It’s hard to expect that a player could have done more for his side in a 50-over match than Nick Stapleton did for Gordon last Saturday.  His opening spell reduced Northern District to 3 for 16.  He ended the innings with 5-38.  He ran out Corey Miller (for 83) with a composed pickup and throw from backward square.  Then he went in at 2 for 23 and batted positively for 65.  He very nearly didn’t win.  Chasing 226, Gordon collapsed to Scott Rodgie and Cameron Tunks, slumping to 9 for 162 in the 40th over.  That, you might have thought, was that, but Matthew Wright and Callum Bladen proceeded to bat their side back into contention until they needed seven to win from Rodgie’s final over.  Wright miscued the first ball to backward point (no run) and sliced the second away through the off side for 3.  Bladen connected with a meaty drive for 2 and nicked a single to third man to level the scores.  Wright failed to beat short cover with a drive – one to win from the final ball, which Wright clipped to mid-on and raced through for the single.

Archie Vaughan had the last laugh

There was a game of Bat at Allan Border Oval, where Mosman enjoyed the flat pitch and short boundaries to run up 8 for 378 (18 sixes) and Manly (17 sixes) fell 59 runs short.  Brock Fitton (109 from 102) and Joe Colgan (90 from 66) set up the winning total, but the highlight of the day was Ollie Davies’ assault on Archie Vaughan’s off-spin.  Two singles were milked from the first two balls of Vaughan’s third over, and then Davies went nuts.  He whacked a flatter ball over midwicket for 6, went slightly straighter for the next 6, smacked a full toss to cow corner for 4 and then went over midwicket for 6 more, prompting memories of Crash Davis’ observation that anything that travels that far ought to have a stewardess on it.  Davies raced to 83 from 40 balls but he then skied Cooper Johnston to long-off.  Vaughan, whose first three overs cost 37, bounced back to take 4-25 in his last seven overs.

William Fort is on a roll

According to The Grade Cricketer, the perfect match is the one in which your team loses, but you score a century.  Sydney’s William Fort, by that measure, is having a blinder.  Fresh from hitting 123 against Northern District (lost by 24 runs), Fort opened for Sydney against Parramatta and hit 106 from 130 balls, on the way to losing by four wickets.  Parramatta made the mistake of bowling a full length at his pads, and Fort kept clipping the ball away through the on side.  He also cleared the boundary three times, sweeping Andrew Calvert, launching Michael Sullivan high over long-on and thrashing Isaac Earl onto the hill at cow corner.  Sydney stayed in the game for most of the day, but Hayden Goulstone (60 not out) steered Parramatta home with eight balls to spare.

Alexander Gomez held his nerve

There was an arm wrestle at Don Dawson Oval, where Brett Newman’s 109 enabled Fairfield to set North Sydney’s Fourths a target of 202.  The Bears were always in touch with the target, without ever taking control of the game, and when Alexander Gomez took the ball for the last over, four were needed to win with two wickets standing.  From the first four balls, Gomez allowed three singles, so that scores were level: he then bowled Chris Halloran and the last man, Scott Daniels, was run out attempting the winning run.  When the excitement of the tie subsided, North Sydney might have reflected that the result may not have been so close had they not gifted their opponents 16 wides and five no-balls.

Five Things We Learned from Round Eight

It’s no fun bowling at Coogee

Spare a thought for the poor unfortunate individuals who were given the task of bowling at Coogee Oval last Saturday.  It was misery.  In 100 overs, 13 wickets fell for 801 runs.  28 sixes were hit, 73 fours – in other words, one ball in every six went to or over the boundary.  Wests’ Josh Philippe hit Daya Singh’s second ball of the day for 4, then walloped Angus McTaggart’s first two deliveries for 4 and 6.  McTaggart and Singh actually bowled successive maidens in the sixth and seventh overs, but even so, Philippe and Josh Clarke compiled an opening stand of 256 in 33 overs before Philippe holed out for 197 from a ridiculous 115 balls (23 balls, 11 sixes).  In any other season this would be some kind of record, but Randwick-Petersham was then confronted with Harjas Singh, who may not have had the time to hit 300, but did smash 44 from 28 balls.  Clarke batted through to the 47th over, when he had the cruel luck to be run out turning for the second run that would have brought up his century, only to see James Psarakis standing stock still at the other end.  Anyway, you shouldn’t lose when you hit 6 for 401 in 50 overs, and Wests didn’t – but it was absurdly close.  Randwick-Petersham chased hard from the start: in the first eight overs, they raced to 60, but lost three wickets in the process.  They stayed in the game through a furious fifth wicket stand between Alex Lee-Young (107 from 95) and Riley Ayre (125 not out from 91) and when the last over began, the home side needed 20 to win.  Ayre ramped the first ball for 4, pulled the second to the midwicket fence, and then ramped a third boundary.  Two scrambled leg-byes reduced the target to six from two balls – except that the next delivery, a slower ball gone wrong, struck Ayre above the waist and was called a no-ball.  A miscued single left Tom Coady needing four to win from the final ball.  He hit it cleanly enough, but straight to the sweeper on the off side, and Wests squeaked home by one run.

Mosman found a new way to lose

Gordon would have been disappointed with its total of 243 at Allan Border Oval – they didn’t take full advantage of the short boundaries, didn’t bat out their 50 overs and nobody offered much support to Joe Pocklington (59) and Jack Shelley (58 from 49).  And they looked dead and buried when Brock Fitton (61) and Joe Colgan (127 not out from 126 balls) carried Mosman to 2 for 161 in the 37th over.  But Pocklington, left-arm orthodox, struck twice in an over, bowling Fitton on the sweep and then winning the lbw decision against James Greenslade, another unsuccessful sweeper.  Nick Stapleton bowled a mean spell and picked up two important wickets, and in the end Archie Vaughan need two runs from the final ball for the win.  After taking forever to set his field, Stapleton bowled full and straight at off stump, and Vaughan, aiming somewhere over midwicket, missed.  It’s very rare indeed for two First Grade games to be decided by one run on the same day.

The Bees sprung an upset

Not many teams get on top of Parramatta’s attack at Old Kings Oval, but University of NSW managed it last weekend.  Parramatta probably expected a hard time from Matt Gilkes, who hit a typically robust 121 from 106 balls, but may have been surprised by young opener Neel Patel.  Patel, the standout player in the Bees’ Green Shield side last year, played beautifully for his maiden First Grade hundred, driving cleanly and using his feet fearlessly to attack Ryan Gupta’s leg-breaks.  The openers added 215, out of a total of 4 for 305.  Tom Lammonby missed out with the bat this time, but made a vital contribution with the ball when Parramatta batted, taking 3-44.  Nick Bertus (77) did what he does, and Parramatta was in the hunt while he was at the crease, but he attempted to dab a ball from Krishna Padmanabhan behind point, and bottom-edged it into the stumps.  University of NSW held on to win by 18 runs.  We were pleased to see that there were a couple of wickets for the tall off-spinner Blayde Burke who, we assume from his name, fits in his cricket around his work commitments in the adult film industry.

I think I’ve seen their spinner somewhere before

In his now legendary Mastermind appearance, former England spinner Monty Panesar suggested that Changi airport is in Shanghai, Athens is in Germany and America is a city.  So it was an impressive geographical accomplishment for him to find his way to Raby No2 to turn out for Campbelltown against Hawkesbury last weekend.  In Fourths.  Campbelltown’s batsmen, led by Lachlan Campbell (62) gave him a nice total to defend, and he wheeled through his ten overs to take 5-30.  Panesar may be 43 now, and his last Test was played 12 years ago, but he gave a bunch of lower-grade players a memorable experience, and we think he might be worth a go in Thirds.

Cam Merchant came back, too

While we’re on the subject of older gentlemen making comebacks in Fourth Grade, we should point out that Cam Merchant, who’s now 41, turned out for Manly against Sutherland.  Five Things’ second-favourite Manly cricketer-slash-reality TV performer hit five boundaries in a crisp 53.  He won’t have minded being overshadowed by former Victorian Axel Karlsson-Lacy, whose response to being dropped from Third Grade was to belt six 6s on his way to 155 from 147 balls.  In reply, Sutherland’s openers added 47 before Liam Dinan (5-25) and Lachlan Kerr (5-16) took all ten wickets for the addition of only 42 runs.

Five Things We Learned from Round Seven

The Students have taken the lead

No Cummins, no Robinson, no problem.  Sydney University was missing two of its more prominent players when it took on Campbelltown-Camden, yet still left Raby on Sunday with ten points and the lead on the First Grade table.  Campbelltown, it should be said, was without Jake Scott (playing for the CA XI against the Lions), but the home side’s batting had no answer to Kieran Tate, who reduced them to 7 for 63 on the first morning.  Attacking the stumps, Tate hit them three times and won two lbw decisions on his way to career-best figures of 6-48.  In reply, University lost early wickets to Jeremy Nunan and Henry Railz, but Jack Attenborough and Damien Mortimer gave the Students a handy lead by the end of the first day.  Mortimer’s declaration set Tate loose again on the Sunday morning, and although Bailey Abela played well to steer his side to 3 for 75, Darcy Mooney (5-31) and Tate grabbed the last seven wickets for only 55 runs, leaving University with a straightforward target.  Tate finished with ten wickets for the match, and makeshift keeper Jack Attenborough collected six catches.  The result leaves Sydney University on 35 points – 16 clear of Easts, who are in seventh place, and who they meet this week.

Reverse outrights are a trend

It was almost as though two different games were played at Manly Oval on the weekend.  Saturday was one for the bowlers: Manly scraped its way to 122 against some hostile seam bowling by Jordan Fullagar and William Byrom, ably supported by Jonty Webb’s left-arm spin.  122 actually looked like quite a decent total when Northern District collapsed to 6 for 50.  Lewis Evans made a serious impact: he ran out David Lowery with a clean pickup and direct hit from midwicket, had Mitchell Crayn caught at slip, trapped Addison Sherrif in front and bowled Toby Gray.  Spencer White batted well for 36 and at 7 for 117, the Rangers seemed certain of first innings points.  Then another direct hit – this one by Matt Brewster – removed Fullagar, and George Furrer was bowled by Evans with five runs still required.  A few tense overs followed before Byrom cracked Joel Davies over long-on for the first innings lead.  Manly began its second innings 47 runs behind and carved 294 runs from only 52 overs – the pace set by veteran Ahillen Beadle, who needed only 50 balls for his 62 runs.  The left-hander slapped three boundaries in George Furrer’s second over – a slash over gully, and two imperious drives down the ground – and he followed that by smearing Addison Sherrif over midwicket for six.  The declaration set Northern District 248 for full points, at more than a run a ball.  They were in the hunt for a while – Crayn whacked 62 from 49 and Gray hammered 70 from 55 – but Joel Foster undermined the middle order and Roop Dhillon picked up two late wickets to earn Manly six points.

Jack Haynes started well

Some time back in the last century, Five Things played some Birmingham League cricket alongside a baby-faced teenaged all-rounder named Gavin Haynes.  He was a polished middle-order strokeplayer who could send down a tricky inswinger, and he went on to have a successful career with Worcestershire.  As if to prove that none of us is getting any younger, his son, Jack Haynes, has now turned up at St George.  Jack has inherited none of his father’s bowling prowess but is, perhaps, a little better with the bat, having scored 3785 first-class runs at 36 so far, initially for Worcestershire although he’s now with Nottinghamshire.  An upright right-hander, Haynes made a confident start to his stint with the Saints, hooking Bankstown’s Brad Simpson for an early boundary, cracking some clean drives, and reaching 50 from only 60 balls.  Haynes looked to be heading for a hundred on his first Sydney appearance until he aimed an over-confident pull at a ball from Simpson that wasn’t quite short enough for the stroke, and skied it to Justin Felsch.  His 78 helped St George to 374, a target that Bankstown was never likely to reach after William Taylor’s first over of the innings.  His first two balls were rapid inswingers that crashed into Rehab Afzaal’s pads, the second winning an lbw verdict; ball three hooped into to Daniel Solway’s pads, and the umpire raised his finger again; and Tyran Liddiard nicked the next ball to slip, where Luke Bartier completed the catch and the hat-trick.  Bankstown had no way back from there.

We have a top six

For the first time this season, there’s a clear-cut top six in the First Grade table.  Sydney University leads on 35, followed by Manly on 31.  Randwick-Petersham are third on 30, followed by the premiers, Parramatta, who jumped into the top group with an outright demolition job on Sutherland.  Perennial finalists St George (24) and Northern District (22) make up the six.  After that, it’s extremely tight – only a single point separates seventh-placed Easts (19) from Bankstown in 12th.  Most seasons, teams need about 54 points to reach the finals, which means that everyone’s still in contention, though some teams have a lot more margin for error than others.

It was pretty tight in Fourth Grade

The number of close finishes in Fourth Grade was ridiculous.  Fairfield had no right to be in the game after losing 8 for 70 against Blacktown before Peter Pigadas (91) and Brendon Orr (30) dragged them to 177.  Orr (4-22) then backed up with the ball as Fairfield squeaked home by seven runs.  Sydney University made heavy weather of chasing Campbelltown’s 165 and needed a last-wicket stand of 28 between Will Elliott and Hugo Cooper-Fogarty to get there.  In a game reduced to 32 overs, Gordon posted 8 for 149; Easts, eight wickets down, needed five runs from the final over.  Japan T20 international Ryan Drake allowed only a single from his first five balls, and from the final delivery the batsmen ran two before Thomas Pitts was run out attempting what would have been the tying third run.  And Penrith, chasing 140, scrambled home against Wests with only two wickets in hand.

Five Things We Learned From Round 6

Ollie Robinson is in the right place at the right time

In theory, the backup fast bowlers for the touring English side are the ones travelling round the country as members of the Lions.  In practice, however, it could be useful to have on hand an opening bowler who has taken 76 Test wickets at an average of 22, who also happens to be playing competitive cricket. 

Welcome to Sydney, Ollie Robinson.

Robinson’s falling out with the England setup, early in 2024, was so abrupt that it’s easy to forget that, shortly before it occurred, he was ranked among the four best Test bowlers in the world.  In his most recent first-class match for Sussex, he collected eleven wickets, and at the age of 31 he should be in the prime of his career.  He showed glimpses of his quality in his first appearance for Sydney University, against Western Suburbs.  It’s true that he picked up only two wickets, but he bowled a mean length and passed the outside edge repeatedly.  His duel with Harjas Singh was a highlight: he teased the left-hander (who made a typically robust 55) around off stump, beating Singh’s forward lunge before spearing one in to the pads and winning the lbw verdict.

The pressure Robinson created certainly helped his new-ball partner, Kieran Tate, who was aggressive, moving the ball away from the bat and finding impressive pace and bounce.  He wasn’t flattered by his figures for 5 for 34.  The Students had few alarms chasing down their target, Patrick Xie playing beautifully for 97 in an innings anchored by veteran Jack Hill who, promoted to First Grade for the first time this season, was unbeaten on 87 when the declaration was made.

Cricket is not a fair game

The storm that swept across Sydney late on Saturday cut short a number of games, leaving four First Grade matches drawn, which was particularly cruel at Waverley Oval, where a hard-fought contest was denied a proper finish.  On the first day, Easts battled their way to 268, an innings built around 96 from Old Harrovian Johnny Connell.  Connell looked good: he used his feet well to Tanveer Sangha, and picked up a ball from Raheem Abdul that was only a little short, launching it over midwicket for six.  Unfortunately, he tried to repeat that stroke against Jake Scott when he needed four for his hundred, and top-edged a catch to Anthony Mosca.  Trystan Kennedy continued his good form with 62, and when Campbelltown lost its first three wickets for only 39 runs, the home side looked well on top.  Anthony Mosca and Jake Scott resisted for a time, and then some late runs from Henry Railz and Thomas Patterson kept the Ghosts in the fight.  When Harry Conway, steaming in through the gathering gloom, removed Sangha, Campbelltown still needed 37 runs with two wickets standing.  Patterson and Abdul knocked off 18 of them, but at 8 for 250 the covers came out.  Matt Moran hit Patterson’s leg stump soon after play resumed, setting up a tense final over.  Jermey Nunan aimed several ambitious but totally unsuccessful swishes at Conway, who somehow managed to hit neither the stumps nor the edge.  In the end, Easts needed just one wicket, Campbelltown nine runs.  It was a tight, entertaining game that deserved, but didn’t get, a winner.

Tom Lammonby is back

You may remember Tom Lammonby as the English left-hander who played several bright, though not very long, innings for Manly about five years ago.  He’s now back in Sydney, this time with University of NSW, and he marked his first game for the Bees by smashing an unbeaten 176 against Fairfield at Rosedale.  Lammonby belted six 6s and 17 fours, adding 158 for the third wicket with Annay Chauhan.  For good measure, he picked up the key wicket of Arjun Nair on the second day.  The game was poised in an intriguing position when the weather intervened – Fairfield, thanks to Brent Williams’ unbeaten hundred, needed 83 runs in the last hour with six wickets still standing.  Anyway, if Lammonby plays too many more games with Matt Gilkes, the University of NSW bowlers should have plenty of runs to play with.

Two hundreds are better than one

Here are three reasons we can think of why there aren’t many double-hundreds scored in Fifth Grade.  First, you usually don’t have enough time to score that many runs; secondly, the pitches are often less than perfect, and finally, if you’re good enough to do that, you’ve probably been promoted already.  Anyway, no one explained any of this to Manly’s Alfie Gatehouse, who dominated the match against Sydney at Ryde Oval by hitting 202 not out.  The signs were there from the start: opening the innings, Gatehouse hit the first two deliveries for four, and he found the boundary 25 times, scoring his runs from only 190 deliveries.  A local product, by way of the Warringah club and St Augustine’s College, Gatehouse is in his first season with Manly. 

It wasn’t, however, the highest innings of the round because Sydney University’s Evie Fisher set about rewriting the record books in Brewer Shield.  Playing against Northern District at Asquith, Fisher lashed 205 from only 148 balls, an innings decorated with 35 fours and a six.  Fisher, who’s still at Kirrawee High School, erased the Brewer Shield record of 202 set by Caoimhe Bray (who, it’s terrifying to realise, is still eligible to play in the competition for two more years).  The highlight was the 42nd over, during which Fisher hit every delivery for four.  She scored all around the ground, but was especially clinical in dispatching anything short.  Fisher has represented CHS East in the last three State championships, and looks an exceptional prospect.

Odd things happen in Fifth Grade

Batting first at Snape Park, Campbelltown’s Fifth Grade began solidly enough against Easts, reaching 2 for 38, before falling in a heap and losing their last eight wickets for only 31 runs.  The agent of destruction was Tyson Jansz, a 14 year old leg-spinner.  Jansz is interesting to watch: he’s still pretty short, and he races towards the bowling crease before launching the ball high into the air and giving it a mighty tweak.  From 13 overs, he collected seven for 27.  A common pitfall for young leg-spinners is the challenge of adjusting their trajectory as they grow taller; if Jansz can handle that, his progress will be worth watching.  Jansz wasn’t the only young player to excel in Fifths: at Camperdown, Wests followed on 291 runs behind Sydney University, and slumped to 4 for 55 before 16 year old Krish Sharma salvaged some pride for his side by hitting an unbeaten 101 in a total of 5 for 133.  As if to prove that old men can play too, Sydney University’s Ash Cowan (who first played in Fifth Grade in 2002) hammered his way to 99 from 84 balls before – somehow, with all that experience – deciding that a quick single was the best way to bring up his hundred.  You can guess the rest.

Five Things We Learned from Round 5

Canada, you missed out

Last Sunday, Game Seven of the World Series became the most-watched baseball game of all time.  It led the TV ratings in the United States, recorded colossal figures in Japan and, apparently, was watched at least in part by 45% of the population of Canada (owing to the involvement of the Toronto Blue Jays).  Why these people were watching baseball when they could have been following the livestream from Old Kings Oval is anyone’s guess.

Because our weird game of the week featured more action, excitement, twists and turns than a baseball game in which the lead changed once and a pitcher was praised for his extraordinary endurance because he sent down the equivalent of twenty overs in two days. 

It started conventionally enough: Parramatta batted, and Ben Abbott and NSW Under-19 representative Nitesh Samuel put together a partnership of 40 in 15 overs.  Then Abbott chipped Fletcher May to mid-on, after which all ten Parramatta wickets went down for just 72 runs.  The pitch was invitingly green, May and Kieran Tate (playing his 100th First Grade game) bowled a fourth-stump line, the ball nibbled around and Tim Cummins kept taking catches – he finished up with six (and has not, as far as we know, announced that he’s unavailable for the first Test).  May ended up with 5-35 and the Students were faced with a very gettable target of 112.  At one for 22, with Yuvraj Sharma looking ominously good, that seemed like a straightforward task.  But Michael Sullivan and Isaac Earl know all there is to know about bowling at Old Kings, and by stumps University had crashed to 9 for 49 – at one stage losing five wickets for five runs.  Early on the second day, Parramatta took an improbable lead of 55 on the first innings.  Samuel and Abbott increased that lead by 62, and when Parramatta declared at 4 for 144, University needed 200 in 33 overs.  That seemed well beyond a team that had scored 57 in its first attempt, especially when Michael Sullivan broke through with the second ball of the innings.  But Jack Attenborough gave himself room to drive cleanly through the off side, Sharma played a handy innings and Patrick Xie applied the accelerator against his old club, cracking 60 from only 50 balls.  In the 26th over, Xie slog-swept Hayden Goulstone for six over midwicket, blocked a quicker ball, and then sent the next one even further in the same direction.  Xie and Attenborough added 104 before the excellent Sullivan removed them both, leaving it to the veterans Cummins and Mortimer to see University home.  The shared points kept both University and Parramatta in the top six.  And at least 45% of Canadians missed it.

The number of the week is 35

It's early days, but the First Grade competition looks pleasingly even this season, with every club having recorded at least one win in its first four games.  Not only that, but there were some excruciatingly close finishes on Sunday.  Campbelltown-Camden was winning its game against Fairfield-Liverpool right up until it didn’t.  The Ghosts ran up 356, mostly through Bailey Abela (85), Henry Railz (71) and Imrul Kayes (56), and then Railz and Jeremy Nunan reduced Fairfield to three for 49.  For the second week running, Jaydyn Simmons carried his side’s batting almost alone, until Yuva Nishchay hung in to help add 153 for the sixth wicket.  Still, when Simmons missed a drive at Railz with his score on 143, Fairfield’s last two batsmen still needed 35 runs.  Spoiler: they got them.  Jaiveer Singh Dhanoa levelled the scores by whacking Railz through cover for four, survived a furious lbw appeal from the next delivery, and heaved the next ball past square leg to end the game.  It went the other way at Sutherland Oval, where Seamus Meaker’s 101 and 59 from Matt Rodgers allowed Sydney to set the hosts a target of 297.  Ben Roughnan and Charlie Howard took early wickets as Sutherland stumbled to 3 for 31, but Callum Barton (73) and Luke Ritchie (58) hauled Sutherland back into the game.  Last pair Flynn Parker and Will Straker were left with 35 runs to win – the same task that faced the last Fairfield pair – and had made 29 of them when Roughnan found some extra bounce to catch Parker’s outside edge.

Connor Cook went OK

Player of the Match is, usually, a deeply flawed concept: in most matches involving 22 players, any number of contributions play an important part in the outcome.  Sometimes, though, one player really does stand out.  Gordon, at sea against Usman Qadir’s leg spin, collapsed to 8 for 120 against Hawkesbury before Connor Cook turned the game on its head by belting 75 from 64 balls.  He got underway by pulling two short balls from Aarush Soni for four each, and then heaving the over-compensating full toss over wide mid-on for six.  Ryan Fletcher bowled his first six overs for just seven runs: from his next two, Cook drove and swiped five boundaries.  Even so, at 1 for 54 chasing 201, Hawkesbury looked well-placed.  But Joe Pocklington broke through, and Cook chipped in with his off-breaks, taking 3-40.  Pocklington ended up with 5-30, which in any other game might have been the standout performance.  Not this time.

Param Uppal is in form

Param Uppal belongs to that small, select group of cricketers who you have forgotten played for New South Wales.  Uppal was only 19 when he played two Sheffield Shield matches towards the back end of the 2017-18 season, at that time when selectors got excited about the idea of picking players on the basis of how good they might be four years later.  Uppal didn’t fail, exactly – he reached twenty three times, and bowled tightly – but nor did he do quite enough to demand another chance.  He might be worth another look now.  So far this season, for Randwick-Petersham, he has 533 runs at 106.60, with three centuries.  He still bowls: 14 wickets at 18.57.  On the weekend, he set up a big win over St George with a polished 164 not out.  It’s just possible that Uppal has actually turned out to be as good as the selectors thought he would be.  If only he were still 19.

Sometimes, cricket makes no obvious sense

If you ever have to explain cricket to someone, you might start by telling them what a run is, and then point out that the team that scores the most runs wins.  At that point, probably, you’d get diverted into explaining draws, but you get the drift.  Anyway, at Trumper Park on Saturday, Easts scored 9 for 201 from 36 overs (Nick Taylor hitting 79), and Northern District lost its last wicket from the last ball of the 36th over, when Mitchell Brooks was run out with the score on 200.  So the result, of course, was a tie.  That happened because rain shortened the Easts innings, and the application of the DLS formula adjusted the winning target by one run.  Try explaining that to 45% of Canadians.

Five Things We Learned from Round 4

It’s swooping season

The feelgood story of the week came from Coogee Oval on Sunday, where Western Suburbs upset the home side to take out the Kingsgrove Sports T20 title.  Feelgood because it’s the Magpies’ first premiership at First Grade level since they won the Rothman’s Cup (a limited-overs knockout competition) all the way back in 1974-75. 

For about half the game, things seemed to be going to script.  Jack Bermingham and Tom Brooks bowled well, Randwick-Petersham never quite broke loose, and no-one scored more than Param Uppal’s 41, but a late flurry from Uppal and Riley Ayre peeled 44 runs from the last three overs of the innings, and 7 for 181 looked like a healthy score.  It looked even better when Harjas Singh swatted the third ball of Wests’ innings cleanly, but straight to Eknoor Singh at fine leg.  That brought Jim Psarakis in to join Josh Philippe for the decisive partnership of the match – 136 in 13 overs.  Philippe is a high-class player; he stands still and tall, seems to have a bit of extra time, and got the chase rolling with a couple of sweetly-timed boundaries from Daya Singh’s bowling.  His 64 from 37 balls was a key innings.  But he was outlasted, and upstaged, by Psarakis, who needed only 53 balls for his 83 not out (against his former club).  Perhaps the crucial part of the game came when Philippe and Psarakis took to Riley Ayre, who often seemed unhittable in earlier matches.  Philippe launched him over the fence twice in his first over, and Ayre never settled into his rhythm after that.  In the end, it wasn’t even close: Wests romped home with seven wickets and nine balls to spare.

Fun fact: back in 1974-75, Western Suburbs awarded only one trophy at its annual presentation night, the AK Davidson Award.  Five Things attended a Wests presentation night a few years ago, and watching one player after another walk up to collect a trophy, we remarked to the Wests president that there seemed to be a lot more trophies these days.  “Yeah”, was the reply, “imagine what we’ll do if we ever win anything.” 

They don’t have to imagine now.

Jaydyn Simmons got in the way of a record

There seemed to be two games going on at Rosedale Oval, the one in which Jaydyn Simmons was batting, and the other one.  Ross Pawson and Charlie Anderson both extracted tennis-ball bounce from the pitch, bowled a disciplined fourth-stump line, and watched the wickets tumble.  The first seven Fairfield batsmen dismissed managed three runs between them – Brent Williams’ three, and six ducks.  Maybe Dhanvi Vemulapalli was unlucky – he got one from Addison Sherriff that seemed to skid through low.  Anyway, after 15.3 overs, Fairfield was 7 for 19, of which Simmons had scored 14.  He got to fifty in the 25th over, clubbing Charlie Anderson high over square leg for 6, and when he chipped a slower ball to mid on in the same over, he’d made 51 of his team’s total of 69.  It’s impossible (but fun) to imagine what the score would have been if he’d been dismissed early.  Northern District cantered to a comfortable victory, but it’s impossible to fault Simmons, who added another fifty in the second innings.

That one’s for Gary Pratt…

It’s hard not to imagine the Mosman selection process as some kind of elaborate revenge for the 2005 Ashes series, which gets replayed endlessly on English TV as if it were the only series played since 1877 that actually counts.  Anyway, the son of former England captain Michael Vaughan – all-rounder Archie – has turned up at Mosman this season.  Archie Vaughan: opens the batting for England Under-19s; plays first-class cricket for Somerset.  In the county championship last season, he hit 80 against Sussex and took 6-96 bowling his off-spin against Hampshire.  And that, apparently, is enough to get you a game in Mosman’s seconds.

Actually, Mosman’s selectors could argue they got it right: First Grade chased down 400 to beat Randwick-Petersham, and Vaughan didn’t set things on fire in Seconds, taking 1 for 44 and scoring seven.  It’s probably a good thing he knocked out 51 not out in the second innings: it might have saved him from finding out that Brett Elliott captains Mosman’s thirds.

Jack Feilen plays First Grade now

The highlight of UTS North Sydney’s win over Campbelltown was a debut 86 by opener Jack Feilen, who has spent three seasons hauling his way up from Fifth Grade.  Feilen started 2023-24 in Fifths, was promoted after the first game, and reached Thirds with about a third of the season remaining.  He spent all of last season opening in Seconds, where he consistently reached twenty or thirty without building on his starts.  This season, though, he earned promotion with 64 against Parramatta and 90 against Manly.  If you could pick a place to make your First Grade debut as a batsman, Bon Andrews Oval (flat pitch, small boundaries) would be high on the list.  But Campbelltown’s batters failed to cash in, posting only 202 and leaving the North Sydney openers with a tricky period to navigate before stumps.  Finn Nixon-Tomko got things moving by carving Henry Railz to the fence at point, and the left-handed Feilen hit his first ball in the top grade – a loosener from Jake Scott – behind square for two runs.  The second delivery, also on a full length, was punched through mid off for four.  Feilen looked composed and well-organised, and he reached fifty from only 62 balls, cutting Harjapan Singh to deep point for a single.  His partnership with Nixon-Tomko was worth 93, and when he was second man out for 86, Feilen had faced 117 balls and hit 13 fours.

It’s not over til it’s over

Weird game of the week was at Marrickville Oval where, in the first two innings, 18 wickets fell for 401 runs, 107 of which were scored by Sydney University’s newly-promoted Ed Shand, who was making his debut in Third Grade.  Manly crashed to 6 for 128 before Jack Melchiore (81) and George Cumming (56) dragged their side up to 200, when Sam Webber declared nine down.  That looked like an optimistic declaration when Ollie Meadows and Shand compiled a rapid opening stand of 81.  Webber himself grabbed three wickets to turn the game into a contest, but at 3 for 180, there looked to be only one possible result.  But then Cumming had Shand caught by Brodie McDowell, and from 4 for 193, the Students lost five wickets for five runs in a chaotic collapse.  It was left to last batsman Darcy Manners to knock off the three runs needed for a one-wicket victory, in a game that had more momentum shifts than anyone had a right to expect.

Five Things We Learned from Round 3

And then there were four

The four teams still standing in the Kingsgrove Sports T20 are Western Suburbs, Randwick-Petersham, Manly and Bankstown.  Unluckiest man of the quarter-finals was Northern Districts’ Lachlan Shaw, who exploded out of the blocks with 75 from only 32 balls, steering his side to a very competitive 7-193.  Bad weather then reduced Bankstown’s target to 64 off 7, which was reached thanks to Angus Campbell’s 29 from 13.  Manly bowled immaculately to defend a par score against Sydney University.  Wests befuddled Fairfield with leg-spin, Tom Brooks and Ethan Jamieson each claiming three wickets, and then Harjased them into submission (22 balls, seven sixes and 61 runs).  Harjas Singh celebrated his selection in the NSW Second XI by lashing Luke Hodges for three successive sixes, and Wests had more than 8 overs to spare in the chase.  Randwick-Petersham contained Mosman to 8-159, and had reached 75 without loss from 32 balls when play ended – almost double the par score on DLS.  Finals day is next Sunday.

Jordan Watson is seeing them well

Penrith has had a mixed start to the season, but the undoubted high point has been the form of Jordan Watson.  Watson has scored runs consistently in First Grade over the last three seasons, but without quite reaching his potential and without posting a century.  Now, though, his last four innings have been 37 not out, 85, 85 and 108 not out – 315 runs for twice out.  His breakthrough hundred steered Penrith to a tight win over Sydney, who posted a competitive 247 batting first, and then claimed two early wickets.  First with Ryan Gibson, and then with support from Adam Bayliss, Watson carried Penrith to victory with eight balls to spare.  Watson, a tall right-hander, is playing this season with admirable simplicity.  If the ball’s up, he drives; the short ones, he cuts and pulls; anything on a length is blocked or worked away.  With Ryan Gibson running into form, Penrith’s bowlers should have plenty of runs to work with.

Sometimes old school works

Sydney University’s chase against Blacktown on Saturday reminded older observers of the early days of 50-over cricket when, instead of frantic bashing in the powerplay, teams began their innings steadily, built partnerships and kept wickets in hand for a late charge.  Blacktown’s 6 for 270, built around Arthav Deshpande’s second century of the season, looked around par.  Jack Attenborough (right-handed, tall) and John Rogers (left-handed, stocky) gave University a solid platform with an opening stand of 106, after which Yuvraj Sharma played busily for 44, but the Students were always slightly behind the required rate.  Tim Cummins (40 from31) applied the accelerator, but University still needed more than eight an over before Cameron Frendo cracked Mandar Mariguddi straight down the ground for six.  Frendo wrapped up the chase by smashing Kunj Changela for 4 and 6 in the final over.

Pick your cliché: was it scoreboard pressure, or not over til it’s over?

Illogical game of the week was at Mark Taylor Oval, where Northern Districts Seconds were down and out three times, yet somehow won.  Hawkesbury’s Lachlan Boyd broke through in the third over, and when off-spinner Riley Wilson grabbed two wickets in as many overs, the home side had slumped to 8 for 107 in the 32nd over.  But George Furrer dug in, while the left-handed Campbell Smith chanced his arm, and the ninth wicket boosted the score by 51 runs.  Still, 158 is no sort of a target at MTO and, even though Jack Cincotta took three early wickets, Lovish Sethi and Udey Gill took the Hawks to 3 for 94: 65 needed, seven wickets in hand, almost 25 overs to go.  Then Smith, whose left-arm spin had been punished early on, got one to scurry through and beat Gill’s pull shot, and won another lbw decision with his next delivery when he beat Jayden Wheeler in flight.  Furrer, a tall left-arm seamer with plenty of First Grade experience, then crashed a full ball into Riley Wilson’s pads and Hawkesbury had lost three for one in four balls.  Even so, they recovered well enough to reach 6 for 144, needing only 15 to win, before another dramatic collapse, as the last four wickets tumbled for only five runs.  It’s not every game when you get to use your get-out-of-jail-free card three times.

Frankie Nicklin looks ready to step up

Frankie Nicklin has spent the first part of the WNCL season travelling around as an unused squad member for NSW, but marked her first club appearance of the season with a dominant display for Sydney University against Gordon.  After Gordon made a lively start, Nicklin pegged things back by darting a quicker ball past Ami Campbell’s reverse sweep.  Nicklin bowls her off-breaks from a short run with an economical action, but she’s very accurate and varies her flight cleverly.  She lured Elsa Hunter into an indiscreet swipe, and wrapped up the tail in her second spell to finish with 4 for 18 – as well as taking two catches.  She then made sure of the DLS-reduced run chase with a calm 45 from 32 balls, driving strongly off both the front and back foot. 

Five Things We Learned from Round Two

There’s a backyard somewhere in Ashfield that’s full of white cricket balls

One moment, among so many spectacular highlights, really stands out from Harjas Singh’s phenomenal innings against Sydney.  It came in the 35th over.  Singh had just reached his hundred, from 74 balls, by swinging left-armer Joe Davies over midwicket for six, then celebrated by pulling the next ball for another six.  Davies responded with a pretty decent delivery, just short of a length, just outside off stump, angling in.  Singh leaned back, waited for the ball, and played the most delicate dab to third man for two.  It was a stroke that said, you’re watching a batter here, not just someone who stands tall and whacks the ball.

Of course, there was also quite a lot of standing tall and whacking the ball.  Singh’s innings has gone viral: if you have access to the internet, we are telling you things you already know.  There are people in Honduras who already know that it’s the third-highest innings ever played in Sydney Premier cricket (behind Victor Trumper’s 335 and Phil Jaques’ 321).  Singh’s 314 is the highest individual score ever recorded in a Premier Cricket 50-over match in Australia.  His 35 sixes also set a record: several balls disappeared over that redbrick wall at Pratten Park and now nestle in backyard shrubbery.  One estimate is that ten balls were lost – we gave up counting after six.

A few things might have escaped you, though.  High scores in 50-over games are usually made by openers, who have more time.  Singh didn’t go in until the tenth over of the innings: he had, in effect, only forty overs to bat.  And he started slowly.  Even though he hit the seventh ball he faced over the fence, he made only 8 runs from his first 13 balls.  His fifty came from 32 balls, which is fast, but not extraordinary.  The remarkable acceleration came late in the innings.  He hit three 6s in the 35th over, three more in the 36th, and five in the 37th.  With three overs remaining, his score was 239, but in the last three overs of the innings, he hit twelve more sixes.  Towards the end of the innings, he turned down several easy singles so that he could stay at the striker’s end and keep clearing the fence.

Joe Davies, incidentally, was making his First Grade debut.  Normally, you’d be pretty happy with your debut if you got through your ten overs and picked up two wickets.  It’s a safe bet that, no matter how long his First Grade career lasts, the worst part is already over. 

You might have read that Singh’s 35 sixes were a record for New South Wales Premier Cricket – remember what the previous record was?  It happened only last season, when Brynmor Mendel cleared the fence 23 times playing Second Grade for Manly against… Sydney.  It’s slightly curious that not one Sydney player appeared in both those matches.

One last thing: oddly, Sydney didn’t bowl all that badly.  We can’t recall Singh playing a single orthodox drive: he wasn’t offered up half-volleys.  There were a few full tosses, and 26 wides is way too many, but if there’s a criticism to be made of the bowling, it’s that it was a bit predictable: Sydney’s bowlers kept sending down straight, good-length deliveries which fell into the arc of Singh’s hitting swing.  They might have mixed things up a bit more.  Although, the way Singh played, it may not have mattered.

The Students have momentum

Sydney University has started the season in excellent white-ball form: after sweeping its four T20 matches, it began the 50-over competition with a convincing win over Penrith.  Tim Cummins was at the centre of it: he began the day as the tenth-highest run-scorer for the Students in First Grade, and leap-frogged Alan Crompton, Shane Stanton and Ian Fisher to move up to seventh.  He did it by thumping 93 from only 85 balls, including four 6s – a performance that would have been eye-catching on any other day.  Yuvraj Sharma contributed a brisk 52, Bailey Lidgard landed some clean blows, and a target of 291 always looked beyond Penrith after Darcy Mooney struck three times in his first four overs and Kieran Tate removed the dangerous Ryan Gibson.  Cummins enjoyed a big day out against his former club, completing five dismissals behind the stumps – the last of which was his 600th in all grades of Premier Cricket.

Today’s lesson is, it’s not over til it’s over

It was a busy day for Sutherland’s Lucas Sheehy, who began by playing Thirds at Sutherland Oval, drove north to watch his two brothers play Fourths at Beauchamp, and ended up fielding as a substitute in Firsts after Andrew Deitz injured his knee.  That meant that he played a part in the illogical game of the week, played at the Shore school ground at Northbridge, where Sutherland scraped together only 164 against Gordon.  When a drinks break was taken after 18 overs, Gordon was 1-86 in reply: 79 runs needed from 192 balls with nine wickets in hand.  Three balls after the break, Mich Lole (who had looked good for his 47) played around a straight ball from Luke Ritchie and was hit in front.  Hardly a crisis, though: Axel Cahlin and Nick Stapleton took the score to 97 – 68 needed with eight wickets standing.  Spinner Ryan Cattle turned things interesting in the 22nd over, when he bowled Nick Stapleton and had Jack Shelley lbw on the sweep.  Tharindu Kaushal then removed Cahlin, and Gordon fell in a heap: the ninth wicket fell at 136.  At that point, the odds favoured Sutherland, but last man Bryce Cook dug in to support Matthew Wright, and Gordon closed in on its target.  Gordon started to believe when eight runs came from the 42nd over: one to tie, two to win.  With the field in to save one, Wright tried to hit Oscar Oborn-Corby through the on side, and the leading edge ballooned wide of mid-off, where Adam Whatley made good ground to match the catch.  Sutherland, by the narrowest margin.

Upsets happen

It’s a sign of a healthy competition that not every match turned out quite as you’d expect.  A revamped Eastern Suburbs looked too strong for Blacktown, and posted a healthy 7 for 258; but Atharv Despande’s 146 not out guided Blacktown home in the final over.  An outstanding spell by Jake Scott helped Campbelltown to a win over the premiers, Parramatta.  It’s unlikely that many people were backing Hawkesbury when they were 3 for 17 chasing 308 against North Sydney, but Jack James blasted a hundred against his old club and the Hawks waltzed home with almost ten overs to spare.

No country for young men

Jarrad Burke, helping out Fairfield-Liverpool as Fifth Grade captain, probably wasn’t expecting to come across many other players his age (he’s 44) this season.  He looks positively juvenile, though, next to his Bankstown counterpart, Phil Melville, who plays in the Australian Over-55 team and first appeared in Premier Cricket (for Mosman) in 1989.  Experience clearly has a value: Melville’s three overs for nine runs was a pretty good return in a T20 match, though not quite as impressive, or decisive, as Burke’s 3-13.  There was a similar match-up at Cahill Park, where Simon Waddington’s Manly accounted for a University of NSW team including the ageless (but nonetheless quite old) Danny Bhandari.

Five Things We Learned from Round One. Or Five? It's complicated.

We’ve been playing for five minutes, and we have our first finalists

Cricket seasons follow a different rhythm these days.  For more than a century, cricket began in Sydney on the last Saturday in September, at which point the teams would find themselves poised halfway through their opening two-day game.  But now, after the last weekend in September, we already know the first batch of clubs who’ll be playing finals cricket this season.

When the final preliminary round began in the Kingsgrove Sports T20 competition on Sunday, there were already four certain finalists: Randwick-Petersham in Pool A, Sydney University in Pool B, Western Suburbs in Pool C and Bankstown in Pool D.  The other places looked like this.  In Pool A, Fairfield had the protection of a ridiculously high net run rate, which would have kept them above St George even if they lost to Hawkesbury.  As it was, they tied, at which point we learned that the preliminary rounds of this competition turn out to be just about the only T20 tournament in the world not to use a super over.  In Pool B, Northern District advanced by beating Campbelltown.  In Pool C, there was a straight shoot-out between Easts and Parramatta for second place, which Parramatta won through a Nick Bertus masterclass and a late onslaught from Owen Simonsen.  Pool D was tight.  Three teams finished on two wins each, but Manly won through on net run rate, which was high mostly because Charlie Stobo thrashed 82 from 29 balls against North Sydney on Saturday.  How will any of this work out?  Don’t ask us: predictions are for mugs.

You know, we used to have to wait until March for this kind of fun.

The Students are finding ways to win

Sydney University is back in the Kingsgrove T20 finals after winning all of its four preliminary matches.  They followed more or less the same formula in every game: bat first, post a total, defend.  That defence relies strongly on Kieran Tate’s white-ball skills, as well as canny left-arm spin from Cameron Frendo and Bailey Lidgard, and the handy addition of Henry Snyman’s deceptively nude-looking off-spin.  They’re also showing signs of winning matches they probably shouldn’t.  On Sunday, Will Salzmann miscued a pull shot to mid-on from the first ball of the match against Penrith.  After 13 balls had been bowled, University had lost three for 14.  Tim Cummins and Damien Mortimer put together the best partnership of the innings, but it still took a last wicket stand of 22 to haul the Students up to 154, which seemed well under par.  Nick Adams made a statement of intent by driving the first ball of Penrith’s innings down the ground for 4, but another drive three balls later deflected from Kieran Tate’s hand and into the stumps, catching Ryan Gibson (who hadn’t faced a ball) out of his ground.  That didn’t seem to matter when Adams and Jordan Watson peeled 54 runs from the next five overs.  Watson played an excellent innings, and after 12 overs, Penrith needed 55 runs from 48 balls with eight wickets in hand.  Traditional wisdom says: Penrith can’t lose from there, and University could win only by taking wickets.  But even though wickets didn’t fall, University persisted.  Lidgard bowled Charlie Griffith in an over that allowed only four singles.  Snyman sent down an over that yielded only a four and a single.  Yuvraj Sharma came on to bowl leg-breaks and induced Adam Bayliss to hole out to long-on.  Only eight runs came from overs 17 and 18, bowled by Sharma and Frendo.  Suddenly, Penrith needed 24 runs from the last two overs.  Watson and Liam Doddrell each whacked a 6 in the 19th over, which left Penrith needing 11 to win from the last set of six.  Tate produced a nerveless final over, and when Watson was run out attempting a second run, Chris De Krester needed to hit the last ball of the innings over the fence to win the game.  His hefty swing produced only a single, giving University the win by only four runs – even though the Students didn’t even bat out their 20 overs, and Penrith lost only four wickets. 

We’re screwed, but the cricket goes on

Anyway, last week, the atmospheric temperature above the South Pole jumped by 30 degrees.  If that sounds uninteresting, pause for a moment and consider how great the difference is between freezing point and 30 degrees.  This is a phenomenon known as Sudden Stratospheric Warming, and it’s why temperatures in Sydney were so high last week.  It’s why, in the last week of September, cricket matches started in western Sydney early in the morning with temperatures already climbing towards the high twenties.  SSW tends to produce hot westerly winds, which bring hot and dry weather.  It’s sometimes associated, over a longer period, with drought.

If you’re aged, say, twenty-five or less, this is pretty bad news.  You’re inheriting a warming planet, governed by people without the will to do much about it (that distant, flatulent sound you hear is President Trump denouncing all this as fake news).  Silver lining, though! – fewer washouts in the cricket this season.  You’re welcome.

He’s an answer to a good trivia question, but also more

Today’s fun fact: since the first one-day international was played in Melbourne in 1970-71, 249 players have appeared in ODIs for Australia.  Of those, only twenty players have been given just one cap.  Eleven of them played in or before 1980, when ODIs were fairly rare: players like Bill Lawry appeared in Australia’s first ODI but retired before another was staged.  And Riley Meredith and Ben Dwarshuis might yet be given another opportunity.  Between 2009 and 2021, only one player was chosen for Australia in ODI cricket and dropped after just one opportunity.

That player, of course, was Queensland’s left-hander Sam Heazlett (against New Zealand at Auckland in 2017), and if you’d been at Hurstville Oval on Saturday, you’d have a fair idea of why he was chosen in the first place.  Opening for St George against Sydney in the morning, he smashed 91 from 50 balls.  He actually sort-of-defended his first two balls, before flicking the third behind square leg to the boundary.  But 18 runs came from the second over, bowled by leg spinner Aryan Malik, including three 4s and a back foot slash-drive-cut in front of point that cleared the boundary.  Heazlett and Blake Nikitaras peeled 142 runs from the first 11.5 overs, effectively ending the contest, and Heazlett was out to the last ball of the 18th over, when he miscued a drive to long off.  In the afternoon, against Hawkesbury, he was even faster, blazing 45 from 19 balls.  St George – with Nikitaras, Heazlett and Moises Henriques, looks formidable with the bat, but oddly a poor opening day cost it a place in the T20 finals.  There are plenty of bowlers who will not be unhappy with that outcome.

Someone needs to buy his captain the occasional beer

On the subject of St George, spare a thought for Alex Parthenis.  On Sunday, the part-time tweaker took 3 for 10 in the Poidevin-Gray match against Sutherland.  As a result, his bowling average went up, because in the previous PGs match, he had taken five for nine against Hawkesbury.  So in the season so far, he has eight wickets at an average of 2.38.  Does that get him a bowl in Second Grade?  It does not.  On Saturday, University of NSW ran up 4 for 165 from its 20 overs while Parthenis’ spinning finger sat buy, twitching idly.  Which, in one way, is to be expected, since in his whole season in Second Grade last year, Parthenis was allowed just one over (even though, in his one spell in PGs, he took four for 28).  It will be interesting to see what he needs to do to get a bowl in Seconds: the traditional method involves buying several post-match beers for the captain.

Five Things We Learned from Opening Day

Jack Wood is seeing them OK

Hawkesbury bowled 120 balls to Randwick-Petersham on Saturday, and eleven of them – just one shy of 10% - went over the boundary for six.  Chief executioner was Jack Wood, whose batting at the top of the order creates a fairly simple equation: generally, if he faces close to 60 balls, Randwick-Petersham wins.  On Saturday, Wood reached his century with a hard-run two from the final delivery of the innings, and his 101 not out was studded with 8 fours and 6 sixes.  The bowlers struggled with the incredibly windy conditions, but that didn’t detract from a perfectly-paced innings.  Wood’s aggression at the top of the order was critical to Randwick-Petersham’s white ball strategy last season, and with two wins from the opening day of the season, the club looks well set to reach the T20 playoffs yet again.

Herft’s here

He’s 22 years old, Melbourne-born.  He’s opened the batting with David Warner and Jason Roy, shared the middle order with Chris Lynn, Beau Webster and Rassie van der Dussen.  He’s played professionally in more than half a dozen countries.  He’s the international cricketer you’ve never heard of.  Welcome to the distinctly 21st-century cricket career of Kobe Herft.  Over the last few years, Herft has played for the Cayman Bay Stingrays in the Max60 Caribbean tournament, for the Chennai Braves in the Abu Dhabi T10, for the Bulawayo Braves in the Zimbabwe T10 and for the Brampton Wolves in the Global T20 Canada.  Anywhere where people bash a white ball around for abbreviated periods, Herft is likely to turn up.  If there’s an Albanian Super Gjashtë six-over competition next year, expect Herft to be there.  More conventionally, he has appeared in Victorian Premier Cricket, in the Birmingham League, for the Warwickshire and Sussex 2nd XIs and even for the Gentlemen of Essex.  On Saturday, Herft made his first appearance in NSW Premier Cricket, for Sydney University against Northern District.  He didn’t get much to do, but could yet make an important contribution to the Students’ white ball campaign.

There’s another McLean at Gordon

Readers of a certain age may recall a young batsman from Lismore bashing Grade bowlers around for Gordon in the early 1990s.  No, not the left-hander who went off to play in Perth, the other one – Paul McLean.  Five Things still shudders at the memory of McLean smacking the ball around to all parts of Killara Oval, so it’s some consolation that now a new generation of bowlers gets to enjoy the feeling of being smashed around by a McLean from Lismore.  Rory McLean, son of Paul, has been involved with Gordon for a couple of seasons, and made his First Grade debut in the T20 double-header on Saturday, announcing his arrival by carving 53 not out from only 25 balls against Western Suburbs.  Showing no sign of nerves, McLean played a neat square drive (a shot he seems to like) to get off the mark first ball.  He produced a nice slog-sweep for four from Josh Clarke, used his feet well to alter the length, and whacked anything short, including a bizarre slower-ball-bouncer-gone-wrong from Michael Dawson, which disappeared over the mid-wicket boundary.  He looks like a player to watch.

There’s no place like home

Despite McLean’s impressive debut, Wests outplayed Gordon on Saturday, largely because leg-spinner Tom Brooks took two for 16 in his four overs.  Brooks (back from a stint in Melbourne) is part of an interesting trend this season, of players returning to the clubs they recently left.  Also back from Melbourne is Arjun Nair, who was excellent for Fairfield-Liverpool with both bat and ball.  Justin Avendano, a Bear once more, steered North Sydney to victory over Bankstown by thumping 99 not out from 70 balls, six of which he hit over the fence.  Matt Rodgers, back at Sydney, didn’t get to bat, but was happy to bank the win over Hawkesbury.  And Harry Conway, returning from Adelaide, was back at Eastern Suburbs.  One exception to the rule is Charlie Stobo, now with Manly after his time in Perth: it will take quite a while to adjust to a Stobo playing for someone other than Gordon.

The Bees don’t give up

University of NSW has endured any number of setbacks on and off the field over the last few years, yet somehow the Bees find ways to remain competitive.  On Saturday, their pursuit of 166 against Mosman appeared doomed when the eighth wicket fell to a run out with 12 runs still needed from nine balls – three of them to be bowled by Shield player Jake Nisbet.  Declan White hit his first ball for four and then two singles were scrambled: six needed from Jake Turner’s final over.  Turner’s first ball dismissed Jack Hardwick-Owen, but Nikhil Thokola squeezed the second away for a single, and White smashed the third over the boundary to seal the points.  Special mention to Tasmania’s own Nivethan Radakrishnan, who took two cheap wickets for the Bees, and in the process appeared for his fifth club in NSW Premier Cricket.

Five Things We Learned from Round 16

It's St George against the west

It was a weird final round, with four of the five leading sides failing to win.  A draw against Mosman was enough for Parramatta to clinch the minor premiership after St George tumbled to a loss in the local derby against Sutherland, even though Kurtis Patterson weighed in with 93.  Wests went down to Hawkesbury, but had enough of a cushion to remain in the top six, while Hawkesbury grabbed sixth place after Randwick-Petersham were held to a draw by Gordon.  All of which means that the final six consists of St George and five clubs from western Sydney – Parramatta, Fairfield-Liverpool, Western Suburbs Hawkesbury and Penrith.  Fun fact: apart from St George, the most easterly club in the First Grade finals is the one called Western Suburbs.

Tym Crawford has our favourite stat of the season

Gordon captain Tym Crawford ended the season with 607 runs at an average of 30.35, which is nothing like his spectacular season of 2023-24, but… perfectly respectable.  Plenty of First Grade batsmen would happily settle for those numbers.  But that’s not what’s interesting.  For one thing, over the course of the season, Crawford scored his runs at better than a run a ball – even though his overall strike rate dropped to 104 after he lingered for 72 balls while scoring 42 against Randwick-Petersham in the final round.  Even better – he reached six hundred runs in the season without ever once scoring fifty.  His highest score was 49 against Easts, and he also managed two 48s, two 47s, a 46 and a 42.  We can’t find any previous occasion on which a batsman has failed to reach 50 in a Sydney First Grade season, but still made 600 runs.  Add that to his strike rate and it’s possible that no one has ever played so many fast but shortish innings over the course of a season.

Tim Cummins hit a milestone or two

Sydney University’s finals campaign stumbled at the last hurdle, but in what felt like a rebuilding year for the club, it was an achievement to remain in contention as long as they did.  Despite that disappointment, there was plenty for the Students to celebrate at Mark Taylor Oval: Kieran Tate collected his 150th First-Grade wicket, Jack Hill added another fifty to his solid season’s work, Cameron Frendo continued his steady improvement and Max Hope signed off, in his last innings before retirement, by blasting 38 from only 14 balls.  But the game was also memorable for Tim Cummins, who caught David Lowery from Hayden Kerr’s bowling to complete his 300th dismissal behind the stumps for Sydney University.  Only the late Alan Crompton has previously reached that milestone for University.  A short while later, Cummins was in the game again, catching Corey Miller to record his 500th dismissal in First Grade – he executed 199 for Penrith between 2009 and 2017.  As well as which, he also notched his 6500th First Grade run.  For the past decade, Cummins has been one of the two or three most consistent keeper-batsmen in Sydney, and he’s now joined the very small group of players to record 500 dismissals in a Sydney career.

Cam Merchant came back

Five Things’ favourite left-handed reality TV veteran, Cam Merchant, is, his website says, a speaker, presenter, coach and mentor.  Which sounds like a lot, even before you add – number ten batsman.  We’re not sure that Merchant has ever filled that spot before, but he’s come back to help out Manly in the last couple of games of the season and somehow found himself, against Campbelltown-Camden, going in at the fall of the eighth wicket.  It was a strange game: at one end, wickets had fallen quickly, while at the other, Joel Davies was blasting the ball to all parts of the park.  Manly lost its first three wickets for only five runs; then Davies and Ahillen Beadle added 204; then six wickets fell for 43 runs.  When Davies was out for 155, Merchant was left with the dubiously reliable company of Ryan Hadley, but they both played positively and the last wicket added 72 before Merchant fell for 41 (which is also, cutely, his age).  Merchant also held onto a sharp catch at slip as Manly completed a comfortable win on the second day.

Weird game of the round was at Snape

Snape Park used to have a reputation for being one of the less reliable pitches in Sydney.  It has been a lot better in recent years, but rain had an impact on the final-round match between Easts and Bankstown.  Easts were lodged inside the top six, and Bankstown were running last, but Bankstown looked set for an upset when Easts were dismissed for only 84.  Bankstown captain, Jehan Bilimoria, did most of the damage, grabbing four wickets for only three runs.  Bankstown had a relatively straightforward task to complete the upset, but the side had reached 200 only once this season, and its batters were not high on confidence.  Three wickets went down for five runs, all to Vincent Daly; the eighth wicket went down at 38.  Amazingly, though, the innings occupied 73.4 overs.  It shouldn’t be possible for a team to bat for 73.4 overs and not chase 84, but Bankstown pulled it off.  Praneel Kavuri and Talha Khalid doggedly added 35 runs for the ninth wicket, but Steven Lewis removed Kavuri, and ten runs were still needed when Daly accounted for Khalid.  Daly finished with the absurd figures of five for 18 from 27.5 overs, while Lewis had three for 10 from 21.

Five Things e Learned from Round 15

Win and you’re in

So it’s the time of year when we get out the slide-rule and calculator and work out who needs to do what to get in to the finals.  This season, though, at least in First Grade, we could just about work it out on our fingers.  Unusually, in the final round, every team in the top six plays a team below it on the table and outside the top six – so, basically, win and you’re in.  There’s still a contest for the minor premiership: Parramatta, on 69, has the edge, but if they were to slip up against Mosman, St George (64) could pass them by beating Sutherland.  By beating Northern District last weekend, Western Suburbs (55) more or less ensured themselves of a place in the finals, although if they were to lose to Hawkesbury, you could come up with scenarios involving outrights that would have them missing out.  It’s after that, that things get interesting.  Fairfield (59) should beat North Sydney to secure its spot, but if they were to lose, and three of the five teams behind them win, they could yet miss out (which might turn on quotients).  Randwick-Petersham (51) needs to beat Gordon (47), while Gordon needs a big win and a heap of other results to fall its way.  Penrith (48) needs a win over Blacktown to hold on to sixth spot; Sydney University (also 48) needs to beat Northern District and hope that either it somehow gets its quotient above Penrith’s or that one of Randwick or Penrith loses.  Gordon and Hawkesbury (47) have legitimate hopes, but need other results to go their way – or outrights, or ties, or draws, but let’s not go there.

The top six is pretty much set in Seconds

It’s not mathematically impossible that seventh-placed Easts (50 points) could pull off an outright win over fifth-placed Bankstown (61) -but unless that happens, the top six will remain as it is, though the order could change a little.  The winner of Sydney University (72) and Northern District (67) will finish first unless Campbelltown-Camden (65) can beat sixth-placed Manly (58) outright.

Third Grade is complicated

Once you allow that outright points are possible, twelve teams still have a chance of reaching the Third Grade finals.  Parramatta (64) should clinch first place by beating Mosman, who are running 15th.  University of NSW (59) will be in the finals, and it would take a series of freak results for St George (55) to miss out.  But Hawkesbury (53), Northern District (51) and Manly (51) could all drop out if they lose.  The chasing pack includes UTS North Sydney (50), Sydney University (49), Bankstown (49) ad Gordon (48), who can all get in with a first-innings win and lucky results elsewhere, while Wests (44) and Easts (42) both need ten points and lots of luck.

Fourth Grade is close

With two days left before the finals, four teams are still in with a chance of taking first place in Fourth Grade.  Manly, Sydney University and St George are all on 67, with Parramatta six points behind.  Northern District (54) needs a win over Sydney University, or it could be overtaken by Sutherland (50), who would need to upset St George, or Mosman (49), who would need to surprise Parramatta.  University of NSW is currently sixth on 53, and would expect to see off 15th-placed Sydney to clinch a spot in the finals.

Manly is pretty good in Fifth Grade

Manly’s Fifths (76) have scored the most points of any team in the five grades, but are not yet sure of the minor premiership – if they were to slip up against Campbelltown-Camden (seventh, on 52), they could be passed by Parramatta (72), who have what looks like a less demanding game against Mosman (currently 15th).  St George (65) will be there, and Easts (55) are pretty safe, especially since they’re facing bottom-of-the-table Bankstown.  If Penrith (53) or Northern District (52) drop points, they could be passed by Fairfield (47) or even, with outright points, by University of NSW (45) or Sutherland (44).

Five Things We Learned From Round 14

Life moves pretty fast sometimes

It doesn’t seem so very long ago that Sydney University was stuck at the foot of the First Grade ladder, struggling to win a game and unable to bowl out their opponents.  In the first three rounds of the competition, the Students took only 13 wickets while leaking 842 runs.  Darcy Mooney’s bowling figures were so gruesome that, in some States, you needed to be over 18 to view them online.  Now, though, University sits in equal sixth place, out of the top six only on quotient, and its last two wins have come through defending small targets.  Mooney, with 5-28, was mainly responsible for shooting out Randwick-Petersham for just 134, as the Students defended a sub-par total of 192 at Coogee.  Mooney bowls from a fair height, and hits the seam on an awkward length around the off stump.  He made a key breakthrough early on Sunday when Ben Monetdoro closed the bat face and lobbed a leading edge into the gully, and he found a perfect line to draw an outside edge from Anthony Sams.  Kieran Tate squeezed the ball through Riley Ayre’s front-foot prod, and there was no way back from 4 for 17, Mooney cleaning up the tail after lunch.  University’s modest score owed most to Jack Hill, batting time, and some lower order defiance from Cameron Frendo, who also chipped in with two wickets.  University has perhaps the hardest run home of any team in finals contention, but at least it has momentum on its side.

We don’t do predictions.  But…

As there are already enough ways to look foolish, we don’t attempt predictions here at Five Things.  However, as a general rule of thumb we always think that teams need about 60 points to be sure of reaching the First Grade finals.  The way this year’s table looks, the magic number could be as high as 59 or as low as 54.  St George (58) beating Parramatta (59) means that the race for first place is still live, and players from both clubs should cancel any holiday plans they had for late March.  Fairfield is third on 52, but if it lost to Sydney University next round, would need to beat UTS North Sydney to secure a finals place.  Similarly, if Randwick-Petersham loses to St George in Round 15, it will need a big win over Gordon.  Wests (49) can kill off Northern District’s (43) hopes next week, although a win for the Rangers could leave the Magpies needing a big win over Hawkesbury (42) – who can stay in the hunt by beating Campbelltown next week.  Even ninth-placed Penrith (42) has a chance of reaching the finals if other results fall its way.  And, as we always say, this is the time of year when rain and outrights throw everything into chaos.

Riley Kingsell looks interesting

Bowling first at Bankstown Oval, Northern District had the better of the early exchanges: Kake Cincotta had the dangerous Ryan Felsch caught at slip from a loose drive, and left-arm dart-thrower Jonty Webb had Daniel Solway caught behind from a slower delivery.  Four wickets fell for 90 runs – but NSW Under-19 opener Riley Kingsell was still there.  Kingsell played cautiously early on; leaving anything he didn’t need to play, and scoring only ten runs from his first 35 balls.  But then he accelerated, playing some powerful strokes through the off side and bringing up his fifty (from 69 balls) with a sweetly timed drive over long on from Toby Gray.  He pulled Jon Fullagar to the midwicket fence, then drove and hooked two more boundaries in the over.  He brought up his hundred from 138 balls, plonking Gray over midwicket for another 6.  Altogether, his 149 occupied 195 deliveries, and set up Bankstown’s winning total.  Kingsell looks calm, well-organised and powerful: it will be interesting to watch his progress.

Brock Fitton is on a roll

Last season, Mosman’s opening batsman Brock Fitton averaged 11 in First Grade.  This year, he’s getting the hang of it.  His 92 against Penrith back in Round 10 was notable for containing twice as many 6s (four) as 4s, and then he broke through with a maiden First Grade hundred – 164 against St George in Round 13.  And, sure, these were second-innings runs, but they were second innings runs against a strong attack pressing for an outright, so not to be sniffed at.  Anyway, no sooner had Fitton broken through with his first hundred than he added another, as Mosman chased 338 to beat Campbelltown.  Fitton set us the chase with an excellent 121: he has certainly learned how to make the most of the short boundaries at Allan Border Oval, which he cleared six times.  He drives cleanly, and whacks anything short through the on side.  His second successive hundred helped Mosman to squeak home with the last pair at the crease, a rare bright moment for the Whales, who dragged themselves out of last place on the ladder.

Weird game of the week was at Don Dawson

Fairfield-Liverpool’s Third Grade opener, Raghavan Selvaratnam, made a pretty good start to the game against Penrith.  He whacked four boundaries, racing to 20 from 20 balls.  Then he got out, and about an hour later, the game was over.  Fairfield lost eight wickets for 13 runs to Riley Brandl (four for 6) and the vastly experienced Pete Gregersen (four for 8).  It then took Penrith only a ball more than ten overs to knock off the runs, without losing a wicket.  Wides were the second highest scorer in each innings.  And, which could well be a record, even though Fairfield sent down only 10.1 overs, they managed to use seven bowlers to do it.  Plus, for added weirdness, even after that result, Fairfield remains two places above Penrith on the competition ladder.

Five Things We Learned from Round 13

The Students stayed in the picture

The race for finals places has reached an intriguing stage, with only two points separating four teams in the battle for the sixth spot.  Sydney University kept in touch with a tight win that leap-frogged the Students over their opponents, Campbelltown-Camden, on the table.  University is in a rebuilding stage, but this win was secured by its old hands.  Damien Mortimer played a sensational innings of 80, full of crisp drives and clean pulls, going past 7000 First Grade runs in the process.  Tim Cummins was as efficient as ever behind the stumps, and in front of them scored another vital half-century, while Kieran Tate regularly picked up crucial wickets by attacking the stumps.  But perhaps the best and strangest performance of the match came from Campbelltown’s Jake Scott, who began by bowling tidy but unspectacular leg-breaks before lengthening his run and bowling with unsettling pace and bounce.  He ended up with 6-28, and didn’t really deserve to be on the losing side. 

Anthony Sams has a record

It took him 16 years to do it, but last weekend Randwick-Petersham’s Anthony Sams created a piece of history when (by catching Gordon’s Joey Gillard during the Limited Overs semi-final) he collected his 543rd First Grade victim behind the stumps.  That made him the most successful wicket-keeper in the history of the competition, passing the record set by St George’s immaculate Ernie Laidler.  If 16 years sounds like a long time to wait for a record, spare a thought for Laidler, whose career for St George spanned the 30 years from 1928-29 to 1957-58.  Laidler, who had the benefit of keeping wicket to Bill O’Reilly and Ray Lindwall, was considered good enough to play for New South Wales, but was chosen only twice – in a wartime fixture against Australian Services, and in a one-day match against Fiji, seventeen years later.  Perhaps his batting held him back: although he scored a First Grade century, his lengthy career produced only 2859 runs at an average just below 13.  No-one could say that of Sams, who has recently passed 9000 First Grade runs.  His reward for all that has been a single Futures League match, which feels a touch insufficient.

Parramatta and Randwick-Petersham are in a final

It’s Anthony Sams Week here on Five Things, because it’s impossible to ignore his 78 from 80 balls in the Limited Overs semi-final against Gordon.  Four overs into the game, Randwick-Petersham was two for 13 and Gordon probably felt they had a decent chance – but that was snuffed out by a third wicket stand of 151 between Sams and Austin Waugh.  Waugh produced his best innings of the season, accelerating towards the end to reach 139 from 147 balls.  He brought up his century by launching Jack Shelley over wide mid-on for one of his five 6s.  Gordon chased hard, but after Tym Crawford fell to Riley Ayre in the thirteenth over, the innings subsided.  Luke Callanan wrapped things up with a hat-trick.  There was a closer contest at Old Kings, where Parramatta scraped home against St George.  Once again, Parramatta’s seam attack controlled the game: Michael Sullivan found Blake Nikitaras’ outside edge with the fifth ball of the game, drew Ed Pollock into a skied slog-sweep and won an lbw decision against Nick Stapleton.  At that stage St George was 3 for 13.  Matt Rodgers battled hard for 65, and after 36 overs, St George had reached 4 for 120, with the prospect of posting a decent target.  But Ryan Gupta’s direct hit from midwicket ran out Rodgers as he attempted a second run, and Kyle Thornley removed Tom Vane-Tempest and Adam Singleton with his next two deliveries.  Chasing 132, Parramatta looked comfortable at 2 for 72, but Peter Francis and Connor O’Riordan bowled so well that when the ninth wicket fell, 17 runs were still required.  Ryan Gupta swished unsuccessfully at Luke Bartier, then nurdled a ball behind square for two; Isaac Earl missed a cut at Stapleton, then chipped past midwicket for two; and, critically, five leg-side wides brought the target within reach.  Gupta survived a huge appeal for lbw, and then in the 48th over, Earl clipped the winning run through the on side.  It may not be the last time these two sides see each other in a final this season.

NDs had a big win in Green Shield

There was less joy for Parramatta in the Green Shield final, which was one-way traffic from the moment when Northern District won the toss and chose to bat.  Lachlan Bartlett and Zach Haddin dominated from the outset, sharing an opening stand of 150 in 28.1 overs.  The first over of the match was a 12-baller, featuring five wides, a no-ball and Bartlett’s slogged 4 from the free hit.  Altogether, Parramatta sent down 21 wides and 7 no-balls – far too much generosity for a final.  Bartlett and Haddin have been the basis for ND’s success in the tournament, and although Bartlett fell for 84, Haddin was still there at the end of the 50 overs, unbeaten on 112 from 137 balls.  Parramatta chased gamely, but never looked in the hunt, and Bartlett added three wickets to his impressive innings.

Brynmor Mendel hits it a fair way

You are, let’s say, Sydney’s Second Grade team.  You’re playing Manly, you bowl first, and the pitch is a lively green.  Three balls into the innings, Ellis Sherriff has Lachlan Coyte caught behind.  Then Sherriff catches Matt Brewster’s slash at James Caparelli, and traps Jordan Daly in front of his stumps.  It’s 3 for 18.  The new batsman has a name – Brynmor Mendel – that sounds like a minor character in Lord of the Rings.  He’s a chunky left-hander who  hasn’t scored a fifty in his last nine matches. Are you worried?  You are not.  You’re on top.  You’re still on top, actually, when Mendel has faced six balls and has only a single to show for it.  At which point, the game takes an irrational turn.  Mendel picks up a ball from Sherriff that’s outside off stump and not all that short, and pumps it over midwicket for 6.  In Sherriff’s next over, Mendel cuts a 4, misses with a wild swish, and clips a leg-stump half-volley for 6 with little more than a flick of his wrists.  And it doesn’t stop.  Oscar Kirk drops just a fraction short, and disappears over square leg for 6 more; in his next over, he’s cut, slogged and sort-of-driven for 4, 4 and 6.  Mendel now has 54 from 32 balls.  And now you’re worried.  You’re so worried that you don’t really notice that Mendel’s method is to stay deep in the crease and favour the back foot, so maybe bowling a very full length might be an idea?  But he’s hitting them so well it probably wouldn’t make a difference.  In the 79th over of the innings, he swipes Carter Margetson into the leg side for two massive 6s – the 20th and 21st of his innings – only to sky the next ball to Kirk.  He walks off with 231 from 177, and more sixes than anyone has ever hit in a grade innings.  When Manly declares a few overs later, you stagger off the field, trying to understand what just happened and slightly grateful that Mendel didn’t break a few more records.

Five Things We Learned from Round 12

Rain complicates things

Another January, another competition distorted by rain.  There’s no answer to this: it’s built in to a game played outdoors at the mercy of the weather.  But the fact that it’s unavoidable doesn’t make it fair.  Last weekend, Penrith, UTS North Sydney, Campbelltown-Camden and St George each collected wins in First Grade, but there was no time for a result in the other six games.  Sutherland and Eastern Suburbs never even made it onto the field.  By no coincidence, Penrith and St George sit in the top six, with Campbelltown seventh: winning counts double when other teams don’t get on.  With four rounds to go, there are probably still ten clubs with realistic aspirations of playing in the finals – and at least some of those are likely to be disrupted by the weather as well. 

We have semi-finalists in the Limited Overs competitions

The quarter-finals of the First Grade Limited Overs competition were held last Sunday, and turned out to be pretty lop-sided: there were no close games, and in three of the four matches, the side batting first was rolled quickly, suggesting that the persistent rain left plenty of juice in the pitches.  Conor O’Riordan and Peter Francis reduced Hawkesbury to 5 for 17, after which there was only going to be one result: at Pratten Park, Gordon’s Ash Premkumar and Callum Bladen were even more destructive, as Wests crashed to 7 for 29.  At Coogee, Randwick-Petersham stumbled to 3 for 33 before recovering to reach 9 for 203, English import George Bell contributing 39.  But Eastern Suburbs’ response never got out of first gear, and Austin Waugh polished off the innings with a spell of 4-11.  In the semi-finals, Parramatta meets St George while Randwick-Petersham plays Gordon.

The Green Shield finals are happening, too

There was more excitement in the Green Shield quarter finals, also played on Sunday.  In a match reduced to 24 overs a side, Northern District edged out Mosman by 19 runs, mostly because Lachlan Bartlett blasted 108 from 83 balls.  Bartlett has had an interesting series – his scores (65, 85, 0, 57. 0 and 108) suggest that it’s a good idea to get him out before he scores.  Wests eased past University of NSW, largely because of Martis Johri’s 5-28.  Sydney University recovered from an early collapse to squeeze past St George, thanks to Xavier Quoyle’s polished 62 and another fine spell of leg-spin from captain Arnav Yadav (4-34), who set a new record for University in the competition when he took his 22nd wicket.  At Merrylands, Gordon’s Archie Hetherington wrapped up the Parramatta innings with a hat-trick, but Gordon’s pursuit of 195 appeared doomed when the first five wickets fell for only 68.  Sam David and Sam Dillon repaired the innings with a seventh-wicket stand of 57, and when Arhan Shah took the ball for the final over, Gordon’s last pair needed six runs to win.  Shah produced a nerveless performance to hold Gordon to three singles, and Parramatta held on by just two runs. 

Jeremy Nunan is in form

Campbelltown-Camden’s solid showing in First Grade this season owes a great deal to Jeremy Nunan, who has picked up 38 wickets with some consistently hostile new-ball bowling.  University of NSW actually dominated large parts of the match at Raby, dismissing the hosts for only 200 after good work by Declan White (5-42) and Irishman Gavin Hoey (3-46).  Jack Harwicke-Owen scored an impressive fifty in the Bees’ reply.  But the decisive period in the game was the top of the University of NSW innings, when Nunan and Raheem Abdul grabbed five wickets for 43 runs.  Nunan drew Mahsen Narvel into a poorly-judged hook, which was well held by Abdul at fine leg, nicked off Nihal Desai, and forced Suffan Hassan to retire hurt after striking him with a short delivery.  He ended the innings with 4-61.  Another important contribution came from Ryan Clark, who swung hard for 38 late in the order, and picked up two vital wickets. 

Mosman’s lower graders could use some practice against finger spin

Not that we’re a qualified coach, exactly, but it strikes us that this week at training, Mosman’s lower graders might do a bit of work on how to play finger-spinners who turn the ball a bit, but not that much.  In Fifth Grade, Mosman succumbed for only 73 in 36 overs, with the highly experienced left-arm tweaker, Patrick Lindsay, picking up four for seven in 12 overs.  Lindsay sent down 72 balls, and runs were scored from only five of them.  That was a better effort, though, than Mosman’s Third Grade, who lasted only 33.2 overs and scored just 38.  The destroyer was off-spinner Liam Whitaker, who did the hat trick in his first over by dismissing Jamie Dunk, Thomas Elliott and Flynn Farquharson (who, with that name, should never, ever play for anyone but Mosman).  Mosman lost five wickets with the total on 12, and Whitaker ended up with 7 for 8 from 13 overs.  Meanwhile, in Seconds, off-spinner Harry Gardner picked up six Mosman wickets, admittedly at slightly greater expense.  Anyway, there it is – finger spin, guys, it’s an issue for you.  There will be no charge for this advice.

Five Things We Learned From Round 11

Parramatta will be playing in the finals

Here at Five Things, we don’t make predictions, because we already have enough ways in which we can look stupid.  But here’s one: Parramatta can get ready to think about playing finals cricket in March.  There are five rounds to go, all of them two-day games, which means that theoretically each side could gain another 50 points, which means that as a matter of simple arithmetic, even Mosman (last place, one win, 10 points) could reach the play-offs with a string of outrights.  However, as we say every season, generally if your team gets 60 points, you play in the finals, and turning into the New Year break, Parramatta already has 52.  Parramatta doesn’t have an easy draw after Christmas (Fairfield, Penrith and St George will all be hard to beat), but it does play two of the sides that are currently in the bottom three, and on our reckoning it only needs two wins to stay in the top six.  Its demolition of Northern District in Round 11 was brutally clinical: Michael Sullivan and Isaac Earl reduced the top order to 5 for 34, so that an eventual total of 110 represented something of a recovery.  Then, against an attack containing three representative bowlers (Pawson, Anderson, Gray), Parramatta cruised to victory with eight wickets and nearly 17 overs to spare.  They look like a side who will win more than two of their last five games.

But we have eight more finalists already

50-overs cricket is the unloved bastard child of the game, not as demanding as red-ball cricket, not as fun as T20, but kept alive because every four years the 50-over World Cup generates vast amounts of money for the ICC.  Cricket Australia handles the 50-over problem by playing its competition so early and so late in the season that we bet you didn’t even remember that it’s still going on (New South Wales plays its next game in February, at something in Hobart called Ninja Stadium, which sounds both dangerous and a little ridiculous).  NSW Premier Cricket deals with the issue by grafting the One Day Cup onto the Belvidere Cup, so that teams play in two competitions simultaneously.  That can make it hard to keep track of the fact that the One Day Cup is actually happening, until December when – whoosh! – we now have eight quarter-finalists.  Parramatta, unsurprisingly, finished on top and will meet Sydney University at Old Kings in late January.  Randwick-Petersham will plays Easts in a local derby, while Gordon will play Wests.  On Saturday, Hawkesbury produced an exceptional bowling performance to upset St George – defending only 142, Aidan Van den Nieuwboer (4-29) led a highly disciplined bowling effort, reducing St George to 8 for 68 and 100 all out.  Hawkesbury’s reward for that effort is a home quarter-final against… St George.

We need to talk about Tym

Last season, Gordon captain Tym Crawford dominated the competition, forcing his way into the NSW Second Eleven with 1303 runs at 56, and claiming a share of the O’Reilly Medal.  This season, he’s already played fourteen innings, and hasn’t yet reached fifty.  That could suggest that he’s lost form, or is batting badly, but it’s a bit more complicated than that.  He actually seems to be batting pretty well, just not for very long.  Last weekend was a good example: chasing Blacktown’s 147, Gordon lost two for 12 in the first four overs, with Lancashire quick Jack Blatherwick in hostile form.  Crawford promptly slapped Blatherwick for two boundaries, then hit two more fours in Benjamin Butler’s first over, and raced to 36 from 26 balls before miscuing Blatherwick to Smit Raval.  Crawford has played a lot of innings like that this season: 18 off 17 against St George, 48 from 46 against Manly, 24 from 16 against Northern District, 24 from 20 against Campbelltown… and there are plenty more like that.  Most games he’s been dismissed trying to force the pace in a limited-overs contest.  He actually has 339 runs at 26.08, which isn’t brilliant, but has faced only 287 balls.  Gordon needs to win most of its last five games to have a chance of reaching the finals, and will be hoping that the return to two-day cricket gives Crawford the opportunity to build some longer innings.

Sam Robson can beat you on his own

Sam Robson has been around for so long that the way your remember him may vary, depending on what stage of his career he was in when you first saw him.  Maybe you recall the 16 year old leg-spinner, who took six wickets on his First Grade debut for University of NSW, but batted at eleven?  Or perhaps you saw the England opening batsman who hit 127 against Sri Lanka at Headingley in 2014?  More recently, he’s been a solid senior pro for Middlesex, who makes occasional appearances for Easts over the Christmas holidays.  Anyway, Fairfield will remember him as the player who can beat you almost single-handed.  Fairfield did well enough to reach 9 for 261 against Easts last Saturday, with Luke Ohrynowsky leading the way with 109 from 108 balls.  The total may have been larger but for the fact that Robson was the most economical of the Easts bowlers allowing only 41 runs from his ten overs, and removing Brent Williams.  The many admirers of Sam’s father, James (“Jungle”) will be pleased to see that Sam now bowls in the approved family fashion, which is to say by bowling from a short run with no pause at all between deliveries, allowing the batsmen no time to reset between balls and getting through his overs in seconds rather than minutes.  Anyway, Robson followed up his spell with a dominant innings of 160 not out from only 154 balls, featuring a six, 15 fours and a partnership of 138 with his brother Angus (51).  He finished the game in style, lashing three successive balls from leg-spinner Yash Dekmush for 4, 4 and a six over cover.

Green Shield has started

The early pace-setters in this season’s AW Green Shield (Under 16) competition have been Northern District, Sydney University, University of NSW and Parramatta, who have all won each of their first three matches.  Northern District has a well-balanced attack, in which Ed Byrom and Lachlan Bartlett have performed strongly, a very capable all-rounder in captain Finn Bailey, and a handy opening batsman – Zac Haddin – with a strong Northern District pedigree.  Hamilton Seoung has been in great form for Parramatta, notching 110 against Mosman and 73 against UTS North Sydney.  For UNSW, Neel Patel (167) and Nirav Sharma (103) shared a massive opening stand of 279 against Bankstown.  And Archie O’Hara (a Wests Illawarra product) has been in outstanding form for Sydney University, posting 74 against UTS North Sydney, 135 not out against Bankstown and 55 against Hawkesbury.  The competition resumes with Round 4 on 9 January (when the two University teams are drawn against each other).

Five Things We Learned from Whatever That Was That Happened Last Weekend

Jack Attenborough likes Dubbo

We have absolutely no idea what to call that bunch of games that happened last weekend.  Some First Grade teams played two games in Dubbo, others played one game in Sydney, and the lower grades thrashed around for twenty overs a side.  It was… a lot.

Anyway, Jack Attenborough doesn’t care, because he went to Dubbo and hit 96 against Manly, then 100 against UTS North Sydney, coming home with a heap of runs and two wins for Sydney University.  After a slowish start to the season, Attenborough is now well and truly back to his best, striking the ball with impressive fluency.  But his excellent batting may not have been the most interesting accomplishment by a University player on the weekend. University went west with a curiously-balanced attack of two seamers, three slow left-armers, and few other options, which meant that at some stage the Students were likely to resort to the seldom-seen medium pace of captain Damien Mortimer.  It’s fair to say that Mortimer’s bowling hasn’t progressed quite as expected since he took 5 for 3 in Bankstown’s Fifth Grade side about fifteen years ago.  The game against UTS North Sydney was his 188th appearance for Sydney University, and he hadn’t taken a single wicket in the previous 187.  But he took up the attack with the Bears four down, and Harrison Ward (74 from 70) looking like the key man in the chase.  Mortimer’s first over was tidy, his second was a maiden, and then he found the edge of Ward’s bat, for Tim Cummins to complete one of his five dismissals on the day.  Not only that, but Mortimer’s seven-over spell yielded only 18 runs, so devotees of low-trajectory medium pace may have even more to look forward to in the coming weeks.

Josh Clarke is in decent nick

Josh Clarke was another player to flourish on the western plains, facing 177 balls in Wests’ two matches and scoring 200 runs from them.  His 160 not out (from 152 balls) set up a hefty target for UTS North Sydney, and his 40 from 25 helped the Magpies home in a tight contest with Manly.  Ethan Jamieson, James Psarakis and Farhan Zakhail all contributed useful runs over the weekend, but Clarke’s efforts were exceptional, taking him past 600 runs for the season.  He has now passed 9500 runs in First Grade cricket, moving into the top thirty run-scorers in the entire history of the competition.  Only seven players have scored more First Grade runs than Clarke without playing first-class cricket for New South Wales.  Although it seems like he’s been playing for ever, Clarke’s only 32, so on current form he could be very much higher up that list by the time he finishes up.

Evan Pitt is a handy Second Grader

It’s probably fair to say that Parramatta has the most efficient seam attack in First Grade at present, which explains why Evan Pitt is going around in Seconds.  There’s no fuss about what Pitt does: he runs in from a short approach of about nine paces, bowls with a high arm, hits a length around off stump, and does a bit either way.  His fourth ball on Saturday hit the seam, bounced a little, seamed in a little, and Josh Matthews chopped it into his stumps.  Ben Bryant dragged his first ball straight into mid-wicket’s hands.  Finley Hill took seven runs from the second over of the innings, then tried to pull a ball from Pitt that was nowhere near short enough, and was bowled.  Nicholas Taylor chopped on first ball, and then Matt Coles lunged forward to his first delivery, but not quite far enough, and was given out lbw to complete the hat-trick.  Sixteen balls into the innings, Easts were five for 8.  They didn’t win.  Pitt had five for one from his first ten balls, so his eventual figures of five for seven from four overs probably came as a slight disappointment.

Callum Barton knows the way to the boundary

There was an arm-wrestle at Sutherland Oval, where Northern District and Sutherland grappled all day and nobody won (except, of course, for cricket).  Northern District put together an odd innings, in which eight batsmen reached 15, but only tailender Ross Pawson reached thirty.  Tharindu Kaushal, the former Sri Lanka Test off-spinner, suffocated the innings by giving up only 20 runs in his 10 overs, picking up the wickets of Nicholas Hook and Danul Dassanayake in the process.  Chasing 200 for the win, Sutherland started solidly, if a touch slowly, reaching one for 65, before Pawson and Lachlan Fisher worked through the top order, and Toby Gray contributed ten neat overs.  Sutherland’s sixth wicket fell in the 43rd over, with 85 runs still needed from 46 balls.  The last of the specialist batsmen was Callum Barton, promoted from Seconds only a couple of games ago.  Barton responded to the crisis by hoisting Gray for six, then bashing a ball from Fisher over the fence.  64 runs were needed from the last four overs, but Barton peeled 16 from a Charlie Anderson over, including another six, and then cracked 18 runs from the 48th over of the innings, bowled by Jonty Webb.  28 runs were needed from the last 12 balls, and that became 17 from the final over after Ross Pawson delivered a tidy 49th over.  The experienced Scott Rodgie took the ball for the final over, and the inexperienced Barton cracked the first two deliveries over the boundary: five needed from four.  But as soon as the equation tipped in Sutherland’s favour, Northern District struck back.  Rodgie removed Barton and Thomas Pinson with his next two deliveries.  Rhys Cattle not only dodged the hat trick, but levelled the scores by hitting his first delivery for four.  Cattle middled the final ball, but hit it straight to midwicket, and couldn’t beat the throw back to Rodgie, which left the game tied.  In a game where the batsmen were seldom truly in control, Barton’s innings of 74 from 41 was an exceptional contribution.

Peter Francis is having quite the season

We often talk about the strength of St George’s batting, and about the depth of the club, but really Peter Francis is the engine that keeps the whole thing running.  Only a few weeks ago, he beat Eastern Suburbs almost single-handed by scoring 99 and taking 4-41.  St George, depleted by BBL commitments, lost to Gordon on the weekend, thanks mostly to Jack Shelley’s impressive hundred and some good new-ball work by Ash Premkumar.  But Francis yet again supplied the cutting edge to the St George attack, coaxing life and movement out of a pretty placid Chatswood pitch, and collecting five for 40 from his ten overs.  Already he has 30 wickets this season for St George, who need to do everything they can to make sure he’s fit for the business end of the competition.

Five Things We Learned From Round 9

Rain messes things up

Happy travellers of the week are the Eastern Suburbs First Grade side, who made the trek down to Raby to watch Sam Skelly bowl precisely three balls.  But at least they got on.  Play was possible in only one other First Grade match, at Coogee, where the sandy ground drained quickly enough to allow a 15-over match between Randwick-Petersham and Sydney.  Sydney was always struggling after Daniel Sams whipped out Louis Kimber and Nathan Doyle with the second and third balls of the game, and at the end of four overs, the score was six for 19.  A couple of decent partnerships then lifted the total to 96, and Sydney had a glimpse of a chance when Kimber removed Daniel Sams with Randwick-Petersham four for 38.  But Daya Singh and Riley Ayre steadied the chase, and Ayre hit a six to win the game with eight balls to spare.  Good luck to Randwick-Petersham, who seized their chance, and so jump to fourth spot on the table.  All points are good, but points when no one else gets on are even better.

Only two people really know how this works

It’s a limited overs game.  Team A scores 3 for 141 from its 25 overs.  Team B scores 7 for 142 from 25 overs.  So who wins?  Team A, obviously. 

Those were the precise scores from the Second Grade match between Sydney University and Hawkesbury on Saturday. The reason, of course, is that a break for rain occurred while University was batting first, so the number of overs was adjusted during play, and the Duckworth/Lewis/Stern method applied, meaning that Hawkesbury needed to chase rather more than 141 when it batted second.  No-one complains much about DLS because, intuitively, it seems quite fair: if you start out thinking that you have 50 overs to bat, you don’t play the same way you would if you knew you had only half as many, so an adjustment to the target seems to even things out.  And yet, does anyone understand it?  Here’s just one part of the DLS equation:

Clear?  We can think of only two people who have played First Grade who could make any sense of this at all (Greg Mail and Michael Cant, since you ask), and we’re a university club.  Anyway, by scoring fewer runs than their opponents from the same number of overs, the Students won their ninth match straight, and they can now pretty much take the second half of the season off and still make the finals (although this is not recommended).

We nearly had a record at Cook Park

Penrith’s Fourth Grade had immortality within its grasp on Saturday, and bottled it.  Anyone can get bowled out for 63: it takes something special for a team to score less than ten.  That appeared possible, briefly, when Penrith set out to chase 125 from 20 overs.  In the spirit of seasonal good cheer, we won’t name the batsmen (they know who they are), but Northern District’s William Byrom took a wicket in his first over.  Matthew Brown took two in his first over: three for two.  Another to Byrom in the third over of the innings: four for three.  Brown failed to take a wicket in the next, frankly rather disappointing, over, but never mind – a run out made it five for four.  When Byrom struck again in his next over, the innings was 27 balls old and the score was six for six.  Then a string of singles spoiled things until Brown took his third wicket, and some kind of history was still possible with the score on seven for ten.  But Brendan Vella had to spoil things by playing well and hitting 25, denying his team a rare opportunity to achieve a truly historic catastrophe. 

Theertha Satish had a day to remember

The weather improved enough on Sunday to allow most of the Women’s Premier matches to proceed, and there was a memorable contest at Chatswood Oval, where tidy bowling by Gordon’s Grace Poole and Ahilya Chandel (and the mix up between wickets that cost Frankie Nicklin her wicket) reduced Sydney University to three for five in the fourth over.  University had recovered only as far as five for 38 when left-hander Theertha Satish came in.  Satish began with a couple of crisp drives, but soon the eighth wicket fell with the total on 59, and University appeared set for a heavy defeat.  But somehow Satish contrived to squeeze 55 runs from the last two wickets (of which her partners made five), defending sensibly and then peeling off 15 runs from the 17th over with some meaty blows through and over mid-on and a neat clip past cover.  In the last over of the innings, Satish connected with a clean strike over midwicket for six, before reaching her fifty from only 37 balls and then falling to the last ball of the innings.  A total of 114 was more than University had any right to expect after its start, and Zoya Thakur and Nicklin both followed up with an early wicket.  University never really relaxed the pressure, but Gordon fought back to reach three for 87, needing a run a ball from the last 27 balls with seven wickets in hand.  In those 27 balls, though, seven wickets crashed for 21 runs, with loopy spinner Isabelle Afaras (3-21) doing most of the damage as three wickets tumbled in the final over and University stole an unlikely victory by just six runs.

Sydney will be tough to beat

Just at the moment, the best kind of cricketer for a Women’s club to have is a representative player back from the WBBL who isn’t currently in the Australian side.  Sydney has two of them, and they both showed up at Drummoyne Oval last weekend.  Sammy-Jo Johnson picked up 2 for 7 from her four overs, Maitlan Brown collected 1 for 5 from hers, and Campbelltown was slowly suffocated, managing only 52 runs in 20 overs.  For good measure, Johnson then went out and banged 30 not out from 21 balls.  Sydney sits on top of the First Grade ladder, and will take some catching.

Five Things We Learned from Round 8

Hawkesbury are serious contenders

It’s not unfair to Hawkesbury to say that, over its close-to-forty years in the Premier Cricket competition, the Hawks haven’t always pressed for a place in the First Grade finals.  Last season, Hawkesbury finished dead last, with only a single win to its name.  This season, though… seven games in, Hawkesbury has won five of them, and sit in third place on the ladder.  Much of the team’s success has been due to the form of Jack James and Taj Brar with the bat, but on Saturday it was the bowlers who orchestrated the demolition of Sutherland.  Ryan Fletcher did the early damage in seam-friendly conditions, whipping out Andrew Deitz and Adam Whatley and running out Brendon Piggott.  At that point, Sutherland was 3 for 23 after 13 overs, and there was no way back into the contest, with Aidan Van den Nieuwboer and Smit Doshi cleaning up the back end of the innings.  In the end, the game was decided on Duckwoth/Lewis, but Hawkesbury never looked like dropping the points.

Two Irish leg spinners walk into a bar…

The concept of an Irish leg-spinner sounds like the start of a joke (and if you know how it ends, please let us know), but there are actually two of them playing in Sydney this season.  Gordon has Gareth Delany, who has already made an impact with the bat, while Gavin Hoey, at University of NSW, has made a quieter start to the season.  But Hoey made a telling contribution on Saturday.  Going in with the Bees on a wobbly five for 129, he hit his first two balls to the boundary, then launched Joshua Malone for a pair of sixes on his way to 39 from 24 balls.  He was economical with the ball, and prised out Anthony Adlam and Alexander Lee-Young from Mosman’s middle order, as the Bees got home in the rain by 21 runs.  Hoey played two one-day internationals for Ireland against South Africa earlier in this year (in Abu Dhabi, obviously); his father, Conor, also bowled leg-spin for Ireland, back in the day when Ireland played almost all of its games against Scotland.

Seamus Meaker had a good day

Seamus Meaker’s name makes him sound like he should be an Irish leg-spinner, too, but in fact he bats in the middle order for Sydney.  He came into the Tigers’ top side for the T20 matches earlier this season, and played his first Belvidere Cup game in Round 7, but showed what he could do against UTS North Sydney on Saturday.  Sydney did well to bowl out the Bears for 161, but then, unfortunately, fell in a heap as the vastly experienced James Campbell showed them how to use a pitch that encouraged swing and seam.  After his first six overs, Campbell had 3 for 19, and Sydney had stumbled to 4 for 42.  The fact that they remained in the hunt at all was due to Meaker, who was unbeaten on 51 at the end of the innings, reaching his half century by hoisting two successive sixes from Mac Jenkins. 

Will Adlam hits a long ball

To readers of a certain age, the concept of W Adlam hitting the ball out of the ground will be comfortingly familiar.  Warwick Adlam played seven one-day games for New South Wales, mostly as a distinctly sharp opening bowler, but he was also, on the right day, a left-handed batsman who hit the ball very hard indeed for Gordon, North Sydney and Mosman.  One of his sons, Will, is part of the NSW Under 19s set-up this season, and has played a few handy innings for Mosman’s seconds, without quite showing his best form.  Until Sunday.  Mosman’s Poidevin-Gray side made a slowish start to its T20 match with Fairfield.  Only four runs came from the first two overs of the innings;  when Adlam came in, Mosman was for 3 for 65 from 10.3 overs, leaving only 57 deliveries in the innings.  Adlam faced 37 of them, smashing 12 of them over the fence and four other boundaries, on his way to 104 not out.  He really kicked off in the fifteenth over, when he cracked leg-spinner Yash Deshmukh for two sixes, a full toss banged over midwicket and a meaty slog-sweep.  In the seventeenth over, he took on Fairfield’s spearhead, Javeer Singh Dhanoa, lofting a drive over extra-cover for four, slog-sweeping a full ball on off stump for six, blasting a slower ball past cover for four, and lobbing an on drive just over the boundary for six more.  Ridiculously, 51 runs came from the last two overs, which included four sixes in succession from Aaryan Dixit.  Adlam actually hit sixes from five successive legitimate deliveries, punctuated by a wide bowled by Jai Long.  Perhaps the cleanest hit of his innings was the massive blow over long-on that brought up his century with only one delivery remaining in the innings.  Jai Long had a mixed weekend: on Saturday, he picked up 2-24 from ten overs in First Grade, but the next day his final over in Poidevin-Gray went for 20.

University’s Seconds are still perfect.  Just.

Eight rounds into the competition, only one team in any grade has won every one of its matches – Sydney University’s Seconds.  But it has been closer than you might think.  That unblemished record includes wins over Sutherland by 11 runs, by 10 runs over Penrith and by 5 runs over Mosman.  On Saturday, a strong Parramatta side restricted University’s run machine, Ryan McElduff, to no more than 40 (but not before he passed 700 runs for the season), and held the Students to a very chaseable 8 for 208.  Pete Brazel grabbed two early wickets, but Santosh Samuel and the highly promising Blake Noorbergen then put Parramatta firmly in control with a third-wicket stand of 109.  With eleven overs remaining, Parramatta had reached 3 for 144, needing less than a run a ball with seven wickets in hand, and Noorbergen well set on 74.  The Parramatta innings was played in more or less constant drizzle, and the wet ball didn’t help the bowlers.  But Noorbergen then drove seamer Will Lintott straight to Harrison May at mid-off, and University tightened the screws.  In some ways, the crucial moments were the undramatic ones: May, Henry Snyman and Lintott bowled so efficiently that Parramatta hit only one boundary in the final ten overs.  And then the wickets fell in a crash, with three going down in May’s final over, and University was home by nine runs.  Teams that reach the finals are often the ones that win the close games, and win from unlikely positions.  University Seconds are doing both those things at the moment.

Five Things We Learned from Round 7

Jack Attenborough went large

After transferring from University of NSW last season, Jack Attenborough had a tough first year with Sydney University, partly redeemed by an impressive late-season century.  His innings at Mosman last Sunday suggests that he’s recovered the form that brought him almost a thousand runs for the Bees in 2022-23.  The Students were chasing 310, which seems about par on Allan Border Oval, where the pitch is true and the boundaries short.  Most of Mosman’s top order made starts, but only Nathan Hinton (108) produced the big innings required to post a competitive total.  In reply, Attenborough and Jack Hill (who’s enjoying a striking, late-career run of form in Firsts) set up the chase with an opening stand of 133.  They made an interesting contrast: the stockier Hill favours the back foot and on side, while the feature of Attenborough’s innings was the elegance of his driving.  Together they nullified the threat of Shield bowler Jack Nisbett, and by the time Attenborough fell to persevering left-armer Jake Turner, the result was a formality.  Attenborough batted for just over four and a half hours for a career-best 143.  In this form, he’s a batsman well worth watching.

400 is the new 250

There was a time, not very long ago, when any First Grade side that scored about 250 thought that it had a pretty good chance of winning.  These days, not so much.  In round 7, Mosman scored 310, North Sydney 342 and Northern District 294, and they were all chased down.  But the biggest chase was at Manly Oval, where Gordon posted an imposing nine declared for 449, powered by Irish international Gareth Delany, who hit 152.  449 seems like a winning total, or at any rate not a losing one.  Manly ran it down with five wickets and several overs to spare.  Ash Premkumar knocked over Joel Foster early, but Ahillen Beadle (who’s in phenomenal form) and Jay Lenton (whose run-a-ball 58 gave the innings momentum) shared a second-wicket stand of 133, after which Joel Davies (123 not out) and Beadle (158) added another 148.  Imagine: successive partnerships of 133 and 148, but when Beadle was out, Manly still needed 163 to win.  Bertie Foreman smashed five sixes in his 68, Davies had the maturity to bat right through, and Manly romped to the points. 

Parramatta looks ominously efficient

Sydney’s decision to send Parramatta in to bat looked like a good idea in the handful of overs it took the Tigers to knock over the first two wickets.  The problem with doing that is that it just brings together Ryan Hackney and Nick Bertus, two of Sydney’s most productive batsmen of recent times.  The two left-handers added 71 before Hackney fell, after which Bertus (well supported by Patrick Xie) moved smoothly to his sixteenth First Grade hundred.  Parramatta’s pace attack doesn’t look all that fearsome on paper, but they’re highly efficient, giving nothing away, maintaining pressure and exploiting any movement that on offer.  So far this season, they’ve taken 63 wickets – only St George (68) have managed more.  It took Michael Sullivan, Isaac Earl and Kye Thornley no time at all to reduce Sydney to 7 for 45, after which there was only going to be one outcome.  Parramatta’s win keeps them level on 31 points at the top of the table, behind St George only on points.

Paul Ryan can still beat his age

Five Things doesn’t know one end of a golf club from the other, but we’re vaguely aware that once golfers reach a certain vintage, “beating your age” becomes something worth striving for.  We’ve been waiting to put that little morsel of knowledge to use ever since Paul Ryan made his comeback to Premier Cricket a few years back.  Ryan played in the New South Wales Under-19s back in 1986-87, which makes him, by our reckoning, about 57.  He’s hit a couple of half-centuries over the last few years, without ever quite scoring more runs than his age – until Saturday.  Wests’ Thirds lost early wickets to Bailey Penna and Luca Croft, and never really recovered, but Ryan showed the benefit of all his experience, crafting 64 gritty runs out of a total of 126.  Between 1985 and 2004, Ryan scored 8202 First Grade runs for Wests, Mosman and St George – it would be interesting to know how many he’s now scored in all grades.

Thomas Draca is still available

Enthusiastic followers of the Metropolitan Cup competition probably recall that game a few seasons back, when Sydney University’s Thomas Draca ripped through Warringah to take 7-32 in 6.5 overs.  Draca’s moved on a bit since then.  He played a handful of First Grade games for Blacktown, turned up for a while at Exeter University, and has now become a key member of Italy’s T20 team.  Italy isn’t at all a bad side: it’s full of Moscas, has the odd Manenti, plus Joe Burns and the former Middlesex all-rounder Gareth Berg.  Please believe that they hammer Luxembourg and the Isle of Man.  Draca does his bit, bowling at brisk medium from a good height, hitting an awkward length and varying his pace.  He did well enough to win a place in the Brampton Wolves in Canada’s Global T20, where he played under David Warner’s captaincy and dismissed Sunil Narine on a regular basis.  So why stop in Canada?  Draca has now become, so far as we can tell, both the first Italian and the first ex-Metro Cup player to put himself up for auction in the IPL.  Somehow he was overlooked in the first round of bidding, but he remains available for any franchise with a few crore to spare.  Whatever the Italian is for chutzpah, he has it, and we applaud it.