Randwick-Petersham came up on the outside
Sitting in third place going in to the final round, Randwick-Petersham grabbed the minor premiership by pulverising Gordon at Coogee Oval. The game was only a few minutes old when Gordon was three wickets down for three runs, and things never got much better for them. Angus McTaggart’s hostility and Daya Singh’s guile reduced the Stags to 80 all out, after which Ross Elliott proved that his impressive Second Grade form could translate to Firsts by hitting 101 from 130 balls. Admittedly Gordon’s second innings was much better, led by Mitch Lole’s 95, but ten points hoisted the home side to the top of the table. St George outmuscled Manly, and Easts cruised past University of NSW despite stumbling to 5 for 112 – Max Glen (92) and Marcus Attallah (113) helped the last five wickets add 284 runs. So the first round of finals has Randwick-Petersham playing Parramatta, Easts playing Bankstown and St George facing Manly for the second game in succession.
The Students won the shootout in Seconds
In the end, the head-to-head clash for the last spot in the Second Grade finals was something of an anticlimax: in not much more than an hour, Harrison May and Will Lintott reduced North Sydney to 5 for 53, after which only one result was very likely. The Bears did recover, a little, to reach 140, but an authoritative 77 from Ryan McElduff had Sydney University within reach of victory by stumps on day one. As Mosman lost to Sutherland, the Students slipped past them into fifth place, and this weekend they play a Manly side fresh from defending a total of 180 in a low-scoring game with St George. Despite the loss, St George finished on top of the table. The top six is completed by Parramatta and Northern District, who pulled off a reverse outright despite trailing Bankstown by 45 on the first innings.
Wests finished on top in Thirds
The Third Grade match between Wests and Hawkesbury produced our favourite scoreline of the season, the dismissal c Veeravenkataganeshsivakrishna Prasad Gandham b Abdul Hameed Kherkhah, which is worth 198,763 points in Scrabble. The Wests attack combined to dismiss Hawkesbury cheaply, after which opener Baldip Singh secured the points, and third place, with an innings of 99. In the first week of the finals, Wests play Penrith, who had already passed Blacktown’s meagre 85 by the time their last five wickets fell for just seven runs. Easts finished in fifth place even after an extraordinary collapse against University of NSW, Nishanth Regulagedda (5-25) and James Matravers (4-8) bowling unchanged for 21.2 overs as the Dolphins crashed for only 37. Northern District, Manly and St George complete the top six.
The Bees blocked their way into first place in Fourths
Weird game of the week was at Cahill Park, where University of NSW apparently set out not to lose to Easts, and succeeded. The Bees started the round on 71 points, able to hold onto top spot by holding off Easts (70), and Easts made a rookie error – they won the toss and sent their opponents in. While that feels like an attacking move, in fact it simply hands your opponent the opportunity to shape the game, and the vastly experienced Danny Bhandari showed the way, digging in for 41 from 122 balls. Hayden Fearnley faced 175 balls for his 51 not out; even last man Chaitanya Motalla, who made seven, soaked up 57 balls. In all, University of NSW occupied the crease for more than 125 overs to make 236, leaving Easts 40 overs to score at a run a ball. They ended up nine down, and only 96 runs short. The rest of the top six is Northern District, UTS North Sydney, St George and Manly.
There was some wobbly batting in Fifths
UTS North Sydney went into the final round with a theoretical chance of reaching the finals, and reached 3 for 164 chasing Sydney University’s 179. They then lost seven wickets for ten runs. Easts took out first place, and Fairfield finished second after routing Parramatta for 57. Parramatta looked reasonably well placed to overhaul their target of 123 until their last six wickets fell for only seven runs, half of them to veteran Jarrad Burke, whose lbw appeals often seem to be treated by Fifth Grade umpires as statements of fact rather than questions. Parramatta finished third anyway, and they’re joined in the finals by Manly, Penrith and St George. Attentive readers will have noticed that both Manly and St George feature in all five final series.