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.