Wests’ big week went wrong
It was poised to be a phenomenal week for Western Suburbs – first hosting the grand final of the First Grade Limited Overs competition, then needing only a first innings win over Campbelltown to cruise into the qualifying finals in First Grade.
It didn’t quite turn out how it was supposed to. Wests sent Northern District in to bat in the Limited Overs grand final, and bowled well enough early on to justify it. Jack Bermingham took wickets with successive balls, knocking over Scott Rodgie first ball, while Hanno Jacobs and Muhammad Irfan kept things tidy. But Lachlan Shaw was dropped twice in the 40s – neither a tough chance – and he took the game away from the Magpies, breaking up Tom Brooks’ line with meaty reverse sweeps and pounding the ball through the leg side. His 117 from 114 balls was a decisive contribution, and NDs bowlers backed it up to secure what was, in the end, a deceptively comfortable victory. Wests may well still have been wondering “what if?” when they returned to Pratten Park on Saturday to defend their modest total of 188. Campbelltown resumed at 28 without loss, but Hanno Jacobs grabbed three wickets in no time at all, Jack Bermingham struck twice, and Campbelltown was soon deep in trouble at 5 for 41. Brendan Smith (60) and Blake Smith (36) led a recovery but with the score on 139, Brendan’s limp pull at Jack Bermingham lobbed a catch to midwicket and brought Wests back into the game. In the next over, Blake charged at Tom Brooks, missed and was stumped. It was 8-143 when Ryan Clark was bowled offering no stroke to a ball from Jacobs that may have seamed back a touch. Wests then looked back in control, but Thomas Patterson and Luke Meek steered Campbelltown to the points and allowed Randwick-Petersham to jump into the top six. Wests will still have Seconds and Fourths in the finals, but will feel that things could have been very much better.
Next season, the average height of First Grade players will increase by 3.2cm
Sadly, Round 16 marked the final appearances of two of Sydney’s leading slow bowlers. At Bensons Lane, Steve O’Keefe worked through 12 wicketless overs as St George made light work of a target of 289. It was a strangely low-key ending for a career which was played out, largely, before bright lights and big crowds in the BBL. But it was fitting that it ended more or less where it began – O’Keefe was a Hawkesbury Green Shield player, who worked his way into the Australian Under-19s as a batting all rounder. His batting probably didn’t quite develop as it might have, but his bowling exceeded expectations. His 6-35 in each innings at Gahunje in February 2017 earned Australia a rare Test win in India, and his 224 first-class wickets for NSW cost only 25 runs each. More recently, his ability to baffle batsmen with the slowest, nudest deliveries imaginable has enlivened the BBL. O’Keefe is almost forty, so his retirement doesn’t come as a surprise. Devlin Malone, though, is not yet 26, so his decision to leave the game to focus on his physiotherapy practice is unexpected. Like O’Keefe, Malone was a teenaged prodigy, breaking into First Grade at Sutherland at 16 and striking three times in his first over. He went on to take all ten Sydney University wickets in a Second Grade innings, before joining the Students – so there’s a nice symmetry that he went out last weekend with a win for his second club over his first. In all, he managed 364 First Grade wickets, earned through a combination of accuracy, bounce and variation. He liked to attack the stumps, and was quick through the air, and perhaps the fact that he didn’t fit the conventional mould of a leg spinner told against him when representative teams were chosen. A handful of State Second Eleven appearances doesn’t seem like fair recognition for a player who has been the leading spinner in Premier Cricket for several seasons – certainly, many less able slow bowlers have appeared in the BBL over that period. Anyway, good luck to both – Premier Cricket will be a duller competition without them.
Jason Sangha is back in form
Once Wests stumbled against Campbelltown, Randwick-Petersham needed only first innings points over a depleted University of NSW side – missing the recently-retired Hayden and Brandon McLean – to claim a place in the finals. That mission turned out to be fairly straightforward. Predictably enough, the consistently excellent Angus McTaggart did the damage when the Bees batted, grabbing 5-25. McTaggart, the season’s big improver, now has more than 50 First Grade wickets in this campaign. But perhaps more importantly, Jason Sangha, who has been out of sorts since Christmas, showed some ominously good form with the bat. Sangha cracked an unbeaten 130 from only 89 balls, smashing 11 fours and a ridiculous eight sixes. Four times in his innings, he hit two sixes in an over, and three times he hit two successive balls over the rope. With McTaggart supplying a cutting edge and Sangha now looking dangerous again, Randwick-Petersham can’t be underestimated in the finals.
Parramatta finds ways to win
Of the six sides in the First grade finals, you can argue that Parramatta is the least exciting on paper – sure, they have Ryan Hackney and Nick Bertus, but otherwise they’re a bunch of workmanlike, unglamorous players. But they’re the reigning premiers for a reason – someone usually finds a way to get their side over the line. In Round 16, Fairfield cruised to 4 for 189 and looked set for a large total, before Isaac Earl and Michael Sullivan got to work and the last six wickets added only 61 runs. Then Parramatta found itself in a hole, after Jaydyn Simmons dismissed Hackney and three wickets were down for only 51 runs. At which point, contrasting innings from Bertus and Patrick Xie steered Parramatta to a comfortable victory. Bertus hung in for 145 balls for his unbeaten 67; Xie needed only 90 balls for his 102, cracking left-armer Cameron Frendo out of the attack and rushing to his hundred with a flurry of boundaries from Simmons. Parramatta has a tough assignment against Northern District this weekend, but you wouldn’t bet against them.
It'll do a bit early…
Convinced that the odds of the game are skewed heavily in favour of the batsmen, Five Things loves a collapse, so we couldn’t go past the Fifth Grade match at Don Dawson Oval, where the last-wicket partnership for Parramatta (30, unbroken) was higher than any partnership that Fairfield-Liverpool managed in its two innings of 33 and 44, and was more runs than Fairfield managed from the bat (28) in the first innings. The second Fairfield innings looked like a scorecard from the under-tens – nine bowlers were used, the best of whom, Aryan Kumar, took four for five from his six overs. Kudos to Hrehnan Shah who, with 5 and 19, scored a third of his team’s runs. For everyone else… well, there’s always next season.