Hunar Verma is settling in
It’s not unfair to say that Hunar Verma made a slowish start to the season with his new club, Sydney University – the combination of a heap of T20 games and some unresponsive pitches didn’t help, and he snared only six wickets in his first eight matches. That seems like a long time ago now – in his last two games, he’s followed a career-best effort with the bat (53 against Fairfield) with a match-winning, career best 5-34 against Wests. It was a good day for seamers all over Sydney and Verma, bowling a slightly fuller length than usual, took expert advantage of the conditions after Damien Mortimer invited Wests to bat first. Arnav Raina offered no shot at a ball that jagged back enough to clip off stump; the Afghan batsman, Farhan Zakhail, slapped a drive to Ryan McElduff at cover; Tom Brooks was bowled all over the place, Jack Bermingham sliced a drive to Kieran Tate and Jordan Gauci, at slip, held a juggling catch above his head to remove debutant Mitchell Fleming. It was a fair reward for Verma’s intelligent use of the conditions and it set University a relatively straightforward chase on the second day.
Batting was far easier on the second day, when Hayden Kerr (68) steered University to a comfortable win. The puzzle on the second day was whether Tom Brooks had a good day, or not. Wests’ burly leg-spinner bowled unchanged for nearly 30 overs and captured a career-best eight wickets. He collected the big scalps of Nick Larkin (drawn into a forward defensive push and held by Josh Clarke at slip), Jack Attenborough (who played around a full, high-flighted delivery) and Kerr (who cracked Brooks high over mid-wicket for six, but then edged his next attempt at that stroke to slip). So… pretty good? Except that Brooks also leaked almost five runs an over, conceding 144 in all. He has good variety and gives the ball a rip, but at the moment his wicket-taking balls are punctuated by too many short balls outside off stump. Still, he’s an obvious talent and, with a few more runs to play with, should win his side a few games before the season ends.
It could do a bit early
With heavy skies and greener pitches, day one of Round 5 was a good one for the quicker bowlers all over Sydney, but nowhere more dramatically than Chatswood Oval. Yes, Chatswood Oval, the place where (we insisted last week), partially-sighted elderly batsmen usually have no trouble scoring runs. This week the pitch was damp and two-paced, and Gordon sent University of NSW in after winning the toss. Play began sedately enough, until Nick Toohey’s fifth delivery reared from a length, and William Wolter could only glove it to Joey Gillard at fourth slip. Ethan Jamieson wafted a boundary to third man, then missed a full, straight ball from Toohey that rattled his off stump. Callum Bladen got in on the act in his fourth over, finding Tom Scoble’s outside edge with his first delivery, and then removing Annay Chauhan first ball, with Jamie Bekis holding another catch. The pitch really didn’t do much that was alarming – it just tended not to do the same thing for two balls in succession, with a bit of sideways movement, and the pace and bounce a little unpredictable. Usually in this situation, someone eventually hangs around and makes a few runs, but not this time. Suffan Hassan and Tyler Grainger-Balding each made 9, but the Bees were bundled out for 38 in the 19th over, Bladen taking 5-14 and Mitchell Lole chipping in with 3-5. Gordon limped over the line to claim first innings points on day one, ending up at 5 for 44. The second day was something of an anticlimax, as the Bees warded off outright defeat without doing so quite fast enough to set up an interesting fourth innings.
Sydney produced the upset of the round
It has been a rough season so far for the Tigers, who have been forced to rebuild their First Grade side from scratch after a wholesale exodus of players in the off-season. So it was a major boost for a team of unknowns to upset Bankstown at Drummoyne last weekend. Sydney had the worst of the conditions, too, battling to a first innings total of 242 mostly through the efforts of young Murrumbidgee wicket-keeper Hayden Forner (59) and seam bowler Charlie Howard (40), who have a mere handful of First Grade matches between them. But the critical blow was struck by opening bowler Cian Egerton. Egerton has something of a laboured run-up – he looks a bit like a man wading through wet cement on his way to the crease – but his first ball to Daniel Solway bounced from a good length, took the shoulder of the bat and was comfortably held by Nathan Doyle at second slip. Off-spinner Kain Anderson picked up four wickets, and Sydney took a morale-boosting win by the surprisingly large margin of 105 runs.
The British are coming
For most grade cricketers, the longest journey you’re asked to undertake in order to do nothing in a game of cricket is the trek out to Hawkesbury. Ed Pollock has just travelled 17,000 kilometres for a taste of that quintessential grade cricket experience. It’s that time of year again, when pale-faced northerners descend from the skies and take up their places in Sydney’s Premier Cricket sides. Pollock, a dynamic left-handed batsman from Worcestershire, had a perfect initiation to the vagaries of grade cricket, as he fielded through North Sydney’s innings on day one, and then spent the second day of his debut watching Blake Nikitaras, the inevitable Blake Macdonald, and Kurtis Patterson knock off the required runs. Five Things is still awaiting reports on Pollock’s cordial-mixing skills. George Bell, a Lancashire wicket-keeper/batsman who also bowls off-breaks, has joined Bankstown, and at least got a bat, playing crisply for 35 against Sydney. Bell wouldn’t look out of place in a Green Shield team, and has played England Under-19s, but is actually now 21. Cameron Steel, a Surrey all-rounder, made a quiet start for Easts against Parramatta, scoring 23 and taking a single expensive wicket with his leg-breaks. And Sydney University has a keeper-batsman from Hampshire, who hasn’t yet played first-class cricket, but makes up for it with an absolutely first-class name – Wilf la Fontaine-Jackson.
Forget the spelling, it's pronounced “Keeva”
It was a weekend of landmarks in the Brewer Shield (Women’s Under-18s), with new ground being broken by both Sydney University and Greater Hunter Coast. Sydney University, after a difficult start to its first season in the competition, broke through for its first victory, comprehensively outplaying Blacktown. University produced a remarkable bowling performance, using eleven bowlers in dismissing Blacktown for only 87. Blacktown actually reached 1 for 45 before flighty spinner Tanisha Shanmuganathan (2-7) and accurate medium-pacers Ruby Carter (3-7) and Marie Lagane (2-3) cut through the middle order. University reached its target with few alarms. A much tougher chase was set by Gordon, who must have felt pretty comfortable after posting 4 for 190 from their 50 overs at Cahill Oval. But Greater Hunter Coast stormed home with 15 overs to spare, mostly through Caoimhe Bray, who hammered an unbeaten 106 from only 111 balls – the first century ever recorded for her club in the competition. Bray averages 65 in Brewer Shield this season, hits plenty of boundaries, and scores her runs very quickly. She has already played for NSW Country at Under-19 level, and has a very bright future in the game – unless she decides to concentrate on soccer, since she’s also in the Newcastle Jets system as a goalkeeper, which gives her an Ellyse Perry-shaped problem in a few years’ time.