Randwick-Petersham are the season’s first winners
A ferocious partnership of 78 between Angus McTaggart and Ashley Burton, which occupied fewer than ten overs, steered Randwick-Petersham to victory in the final of the Kingsgrove Sports T20 competition on Sunday. Randwick-Petersham bowled and fielded efficiently to contain Bankstown to 8 for 145, which didn’t look like a winning total at Coogee, before Bankstown fought back to reduce the hosts to six for 68 in the twelfth over. Eknoor Singh jammed the first ball of the innings into his pads, called no and then, unaccountably, started running, changing his mind too late to prevent the bowler, Brad Simpson, from gathering the ball and knocking off the bails. Param Uppal chipped Liam Marshall to cover; Jack Wood aimed a dab to third man at a ball that hit leg stump; and even though Riley Ayre lingered at the wicket for quite some time after being adjudged caught behind, his dismissal left his side in deep trouble. Randwick-Petersham needed 68 from the last six overs – a daunting rate even if more wickets had been in hand. But Simpson overpitched to Burton, who launched him over long-on for six, and McTaggart carved Marshall over the boundary at cover and mid-wicket. There wasn’t a great deal of finesse on show: McTaggart and Burton basically carved across the line at everything, but they hit hard and frequently, Bankstown’s bowlers missed their lengths too often, and Burton levelled the scores by slicing the last ball of the nineteenth over past third man. McTaggart plonked the first ball of the final over away for the winning run.
It was a tough weekend for the bowlers
Across Sydney, the first two-day round of the season provided bowlers with a rude reminder that sometimes you need to bowl more than ten overs a day, and sometimes you need weapons and plans to dismiss batters who aren’t rushing against the clock. Four of the ten First Grade matches ended in draws, including a bat-off between Blacktown and Manly. Atharv Deshpande (167) and Gaurav Dogra (121) added an even 250 for the third wicket, and Blacktown’s total of 364 looked formidable, but their bowlers could remove only six of the Manly side in 89 overs. Adam Searle’s previous half-century in First Grade came from 45 balls in a T20 game: this time, he defied the Bankstown attack for 173 balls for the 60 not out that secured the draw for Manly.
Bertie Michael is promising
Left-handed opener Bertie Michael, an 18-year-old who joins the professional staff at Somerset next season, made a strong impression for Sydney University against Bankstown on Saturday, hitting a polished 52. Michael stands tall at the crease with a high backlift, and he has a good range of strokes, which last weekend included a hooked boundary from Brad Simpson, an impeccably timed cover drive from Liam Marshall, and runs whenever the ball strayed onto his pads. Apart from piling up runs for the Somerset seconds last season, Michael made his England under-19 debut and marked it with an innings of 131 against Pakistan. He looks like a very useful acquisition, although the Students may not have him for long, as he’s just been named in the England Under-19 side to tour Pakistan in December. Michael’s innings gave the Students a solid start to their chase of 326, which was carried on by Patrick Xie (63), Damien Mortimer (57) and Hayden McCarthy (51 not out). But a persistent spell by Sam Grant kept Bankstown in the game, and it was left to McCarthy and Will Lintott to play out the final four and a half overs to secure the draw.
It was nostalgia day at Pratten Park
In most matches of the last round, the batters had things strongly in their favour, but not at Pratten Park, where newly-naturalised Australian Muhammad Irfan helped Western Suburbs to an upset over Randwick-Petersham. Irfan, who answers to ‘Big Bird’, has an unusual, open-chested, slightly wrong-footed action, from which he generates awkward pace and occasional sharp movement in to the right-handers. The match was going according to script when Western Suburbs were dismissed for 161 and the visitors reached one for 53 in reply. But Irfan jagged a ball back to Austin Waugh, who was bowled not attempting a stroke, had Alex Lee-Young leg before with a ball that skidded through low and bowled another batsman, Angus McTaggart, who left the ball alone. Irfan wrapped up the innings with seven for 38, and Wests won by 45 runs. For a while it was like watching matches at Pratten in the 1980s, when the pitch was a minefield, seam bowlers terrorised everyone, and if you scored 161 you felt sure you were going to win.
Weird game of the week was at Benson Lane
Sydney was probably unhappy with its total of 268 against Hawkesbury, and looked headed for defeat when the home side reached one for 58 on the second day. A spectacular collapse then cost Hawkesbury four wickets for ten runs, and when the eighth wicket fell, Hawkesbury still needed 136 – and with the unwell Yuva Nishchay absent from the ground and unable to bat. It looked like the rest of the game would be a formality, except that Aarush Soni and Reegan Wilson then compiled a ninth (but last) wicket partnership of 125. A well-organised right-hander, Soni cut and drove nicely and repeatedly clobbered off-spinner Karthikeyan over cow corner. With twelve runs needed to win, Soni prodded a ball from Harry Manenti to square leg and collapsed at the crease, apparently suffering cramp. Play was held up for ten minutes while Soni lay on his back in the crease and his team-mates tried to stretch out his leg and ply him with fluids. Eventually he recovered and steered the next ball to fine leg for the single that took him to 99, but Josh Malone speared the next ball into his pads and won a slow, deliberate lbw decision. Soni missed a maiden century by a single; Wilson hit his first half-century in any grade of Premier Cricket; but Sydney won by ten runs.