Five Things We Learned from Round 12

The Students are off to another grand final

Sydney University has won its way through to play Northern District in the grand final of the First Grade Limited Overs competition and, not for the first time this season, the most appropriate response is: how the hell did that just happen?  For about three-quarters of the match at David Phillips, University of NSW was winning in a canter.  Declan White knocked the top of the visitors’ innings, taking the key wickets of Hayden Kerr, Nick Larkin and Damien Mortimer in an incisive opening spell.  Tim Cummins (51) stabilised the innings with a responsible captain’s knock but after Ryan Meppem grabbed three quick wickets, it took some lower-order defiance from Devlin Malone and Caelan Maladay to boost the Students to a barely-respectable 161.  White wrapped up the innings to finish with a well-deserved 5-32, and the Bees looked to be cruising when Jack Attenborough and Tom Scoble peeled 40 runs from the first ten overs.  The Sydney University attack kept things tidy, but the Bees reached 1 for 119, needing only 43 runs from the last 15 overs.  At which point, Max Hope was introduced into the attack.  Hope has regained his First Grade spot this season, making a strong contribution with his forthright left-handed batting and sure slip catching, and no impact at all with the ball – in fact, in his 33 First Grade matches, he’d taken only seven wickets with his orthodox finger-spin.  But in his first over, Suffan Hassan missed a swipe across the line and was lbw; a few balls later, Ben Green was bowled, aiming to hit over mid-wicket, and when Attenborough’s chip over cover was held by Malone, Hope had taken 3-6.  Caelan Maladay bowled a suffocating spell that was rewarded with two wickets, and Hope had Meppem and Krishna Padmanabhan deftly stumped by Cummins from successive deliveries, the Bees were deep in trouble. Eight wickets fell for 25 runs, Hope grabbing 6-16.  The last pair, Hayden McLean and Declan White, needed 18 runs from the final three overs, but Kerr and Hugo Ikeda closed out the innings ruthlessly, leaving Sydney University the improbable winners by 12 runs.   

We don’t have a top six yet, but we’re getting there

The makeup of the top six in First Grade became only marginally clearer after Round 12’s results.  Sydney University virtually guaranteed themselves a spot in the finals with a demolition job on Blacktown, which began with a massive opening stand between Jordan Gauci (156) and Don Butchart (115).  Manly are all but assured of a finals berth too, after excellent pace bowling by Ryan Hadley and Mickey Edwards redeemed a limp batting effort to defeat Sydney by just 37 runs.  St George consolidated its place in a low-scoring win over University of NSW, in which Trent Copeland followed his 6-54 with a cool-headed innings and a match-winning stand with Jono Craig-Dobson.  Northern District looked like losing touch with the leaders when it lost its ninth wicket still needing 18 runs to beat Mosman, but Mitchell Crayn led the Rangers to the points with a brilliant 110 not out.  And Randwick-Petersham surged into the top six by defeating Wests.

But there were some costly slip-ups.  Bankstown were outplayed by Fairfield, and dropped out of the six.  Mosman, North Sydney and Sydney can now reach the finals only by a string of freak results.  And Penrith’s momentum was slowed, possibly fatally, by a draw with Sutherland.  Of the teams currently outside the top six, only Bankstown, Parramatta, Fairfield and Penrith have any real chance of getting there – and they’ll need a lot of luck.  The biggest contest in Round 13 is the clash between Manly and Northern District, which the Rangers may need to win in order to remain in the top six.

Parramatta bats backwards

Weird game of the round was at North Sydney Oval, where the Bears won the toss and invited Parramatta to bat.  It looked like a sensible decision when the consistently excellent James Campbell (supported by James Aitken, whose run-up and delivery lead Five Things to believe that a comeback may yet be possible) made good use of a greenish pitch and reduced Parramatta to 8 for 89.  What happened next made absolutely no sense at all: Evan Pitt and Alex Evans added 85 runs for the ninth wicket, and then Pitt and Michael Sullivan shared a last-wicket partnership of 90.  Pitt has been highly reliable with the ball this season, and no more than handy with the bat.  But he settled in quietly before announcing himself by driving Campbell twice to the cover boundary.  Aitken thought he had Pitt dropped behind the wicket with the score on 130, but there were few other chances and not much tailend swiping.  The left-handed Evans cracked Aitken over mid-wicket for 6, pulled another 6 from Harrison May, and drove confidently.  Pitt reached 98 before he fended at May, but got the ball no further than Thomas Jagot at second slip.  In their reply, North Sydney suffered an almost identical collapse, losing 8-91: Pitt took the first two wickets, and Sullivan (5-29) bowled impressively.  But the Bears’ tail couldn’t triple the score, and Parramatta took the points.  To make the game even odder, Sheridon Gumbs made his debut in Firsts for North Sydney, but left the game (to join the England Under 19s) at the end of the first day, and so didn’t get to bat.  Only a few weeks ago, North Sydney sat high on the competition table, but this defeat may well have ended their season.

Sam Konstas is a machine

Sutherland’s strong performance against Penrith was built on the foundation of an opening stand of 224 between Andrew Deitz (101) and, inevitably, Sam Konstas.  The partnership was a new First Grade record for Sutherland, which was something of a surprise since Deitz hasn’t opened the batting since making a duck in Second Grade in Seconds four seasons ago, and has never previously opened in First Grade.  Nor had he ever scored a Premier Cricket hundred.  Konstas, though.  His innings made him the first player to score 1000 runs in all grades for Sutherland in his first season with the club.  Phil Jaques (593 in 2nds and 223 in PGs, a total of 816) and Jason Young (812 in 1sts) – both in 1996-97 – had previously been the most successful first-season players for the Sharks.  Konstas has also equalled the club record for most centuries in a season with four, joining Les Johns (1985-86), Justin Kenny (1990-91), Matthew Bradley (1996-97), Grant Davies (2005-06), Phil Jaques (2005-06) and Jamie Brown (2015-16 & 2017-18).  This is the second consecutive season that Konstas has achieved both feats, having scored 1139 runs with 4 centuries last season for St George.  He might do some real damage to the Sutherland record books once he finishes school.

Strange things happen to leg spin prodigies

Hawkesbury took the bold step last round of introducing leg spinner Aarush Soni to First Grade – at the age of 15 years and 83 days.  That made Soni the youngest ever Hawkesbury First Grader, and (by our count) the eighth youngest First Grader ever.  It didn’t go entirely to plan: Soni bowled three spells, and was punished pretty heavily, as Easts ran up 352 (although, unusually in a total of that size, no-one made more than Adam Sidhu’s 59).  Curiously, though, playing for Easts was Sam Robson, who was only 16 when he made his First Grade debut – for University of NSW.  Then, like Soni, he was a leg-spinner who went in last.  No one then foresaw that he would develop into an opening batsman for Middlesex, England and Easts, whose bowling was occasionally called upon as a last resort.  All of which is to say that the talented Soni could end up in any number of places.  Or he may, like Robson, remember his roots as a leggie: allowed a rare turn with the ball last Saturday, Robson wrapped up the Hawkesbury innings with a spell of 3-18.

Five Things We Learned from Round 11

Sydney University’s season makes no sense at all

Sydney University’s season is all over the place.  The First Grade side recently scored 91, 119, 7 for 72 and 78 in successive innings.  The top order seems to have suffered a collective loss of form.  It has the kind of quotient that’s usually helpful to separate eleventh place from twelfth.  And yet the Students reached the final of the T20 competition, won a semi-final place in the Limited Overs competition, and perch at the top of the First Grade ladder.  This doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but there are a few possible explanations.  The first is the team’s ability to find vital contributions from unlikely places.  In the match against North Sydney, on a bowler-friendly pitch, 40 wickets fell while only 324 runs were scored: but Max Hope, playing his first two-day game in Firsts in several years, top-scored with 52, besides holding five catches.  On Sunday, when St George looked like building an imposing target in the Limited Overs quarter-final, the bowler who helped the Students regain control was Hugo Ikeda, playing in only his first season in Firsts, but already showing a remarkable knack for taking wickets at important moments.  Perhaps a more obvious reason for University’s success is leg spinner Devlin Malone: bowling as well as ever, he passed 50 wickets for the season on the weekend: proving that if it seams, it spins, he routed North Sydney with 4-9 and 3-14.  On top of that, Nick Larkin has returned from BBL duties, and against St George on Sunday, he put on a masterclass.  After watching Trent Copeland reduce University to 3-6, he blasted 108 from 95 balls, a batsman totally in command of his own game and whatever St George could throw at him.  His presence will make a huge different to University at the business end of the season.

13 into six doesn’t go

With four rounds remaining before the finals, it’s time to consider who’s still in the running.  As a general rule of thumb, a side needs about 54 points – nine wins – to be reasonably certain of a finals place.  The table was shaken up by some unexpected results last weekend – Bankstown, Sydney University and Randwick-Petersham scooped outrights, while there were top-of-the table draws involving Northern District, University of NSW, Sydney and St George.  Manly lost a chance to extend its lead after setting Parramatta something of a soft target.  All that resulted in a bunch of sides sitting just above 40 – Sydney University on 48, Manly on 44.4, St George and University of NSW on 41.  Three wins will get those sides into the finals, two might be enough, and one probably won’t (one more win could be all Sydney University needs, but we wouldn’t recommend that as a strategy).  Then it gets complicated.  Sydney is 13th with 29 points.  Four wins could get the Tigers to the finals.  But they have to play Manly and Sydney University, so that won’t be easy.  Four wins could also do the trick for Fairfield (31), reigning premiers Mosman (32), UTS North Sydney (32) and Parramatta (32).  Mosman faces Northern District this round, in a rematch of last year’s grand final, and a loss could effectively end the Whales’ season.  Just outside the four are Randwick-Petersham (36) and Penrith (34), who are arguably the form teams in the competition, and it would be a bold move to bet against them continuing their momentum, especially as both sides play lower-placed opposition in Round 12.  And of course, there’s rain about, and washouts and outrights can still make things very messy.

Parramatta took out the Green Shield

Parramatta, the most consistent side throughout this season’s Green Shield competition, took out the title by defeating Hawkesbury at Merrylands.  The foundation for the win was a second-wicket partnership of 144 between Rajeev Navaratnam and Nitesh Samuel, who put their side firmly in control after Hawkesbury invited Parramatta to bat.  Navaratnam fell for 91, and Samuel followed his match-winning 93 not out in the semi-final with a polished 82.  Hawkesbury’s bowlers stuck to their task well, but to reach the target of 232, the Hawks needed to post their highest total of the season.  Parramatta captain Nilaathan Kulendran put his side on top with two quick wickets, after which Hawkesbury was always slightly behind the game, although they fought hard and the outcome wasn’t decided until the 48th over.  If Green Shield shows us what Premier Cricket will look like in the near future, it’s significant that more than half of the players in the final came from western Sydney’s rapidly growing south Asian population.

Sutherland and Easts produced the week’s craziest game

In Round 10, Sutherland’s Second Grade side had collapsed for only 46 against Manly, so it probably wasn’t the greatest shock when, the following week, they slumped to 6-28 against Easts.  Chris Thompsett did most of the early damage for the Dolphins, and after Hayden Lindsay and Kieran Weatherall restored some dignity with a partnership of 79, he struck again as Sutherland lost the next three wickets for a single run.  That brought together Ronak Bedi (Second Grade batting average: 5.6) and Flynn Parker (Second Grade average: 5.9), and not even their team-mates expected the innings to last much longer.  But Bedi (66 not out) cracked 11 boundaries, Parker (26) defended carefully, and the pair added 97 for the last wicket, setting a new club record for Second Grade.  Both players recorded the best scores of their Premier Cricket careers (passing scores they’d made in Fifths), and the result was a decent total of 204.  That looked like a winning score on the second day, when Easts slumped to 9 for 139, still needing 66 to win, but by now you’ll have guessed how this ends.  Samuel Greenland (44 not out) and Sam Heuston (28 not out) calmly put together a last-wicket stand of 68, and Easts walked away with the points.   

Thomas Bermingham was in the game

Northern District has moved up to second place on the Fifth Grade ladder after hammering University of NSW outright, largely through the efforts of Thomas Bermingham, who was on the field for every ball of the match.  Opening the innings, the Trinity Grammar student hit five 6s in his unbeaten 132, as well as which he held five catches behind the stumps and completed three run-outs as the Bees were routed for 107 and 63.  He’ll remember the match more fondly than University of NSW’s Jack Roach, who was out without scoring in both innings – caught by Bermingham both times.

Five Things We Learned from Round 10

It took two thrillers to decide the Little Bash finalists

The conference finals of the Harry Solomons Little Bash couldn’t have been scripted any better – both games were decided on the last possible ball of the day.  The game at University Oval fluctuated wildly, with the bowlers marginally on top for much of the day.  Hugo Ikeda made a spectacular start to the day, when Giovanni DiBartolo swung across the line at his first ball, only to bottom-edge it into the stumps.  Ikeda greeted Eknoor Singh with a leg-side wide, but the next ball was slapped to point, where Dylan Hunter held the catch.  Matt Day kickstarted the innings with some meaty drives and pulls that helped Blacktown reach 2-47 in the Powerplay, but the University spinners strangled the batsmen in the middle overs: Dylan Hunter snared 3-13 from four thoughtful overs while Devlin Malone was even meaner, taking 1-10 from his four.  At 5-66, Blacktown seemed unlikely to post a competitive score, but Lancashire bowler Jack Blatherwick hit a ferocious 52 from 31 balls, with six massive 6s.  The University innings followed a similar pattern: Charlie Dummer gave his side a rapid start, after which wickets fell in clumps and the spinners proved hard to get away.  Left-armer Puru Gaur was excellent, taking 2-8 from his four nagging overs.  When Caelan Maladay was dismissed at 7-94, Blacktown seemed to be in charge.  But Ryan McElduff kept his composure, working the ball around and picking the right one to hit, while Devlin Malone swung hard whenever the quicker bowlers gave him room to free his arms.  34 were needed from the last three overs, then 11 from the last.  A single from the second-last ball levelled the scores, and then Malone tapped the ball down into the on-side and scampered through for the decisive single.  McElduff remained unbeaten on 52, and Blacktown was left to wonder what went wrong.

As you’d expect, there were a few more runs scored at Chatswood, where Sydney posted a target of 164, mostly through a bright opening stand between Anthony Mosca and Jacob Bethell.  Tym Crawford was run out in the second over, but Axel Cahlin and Dale McKay (55 from 36) made good progress in the Powerplay, and at 2-87 Gordon looked in control.  Then Nic Bills, hauled out of retirement for the occasion, grabbed two critical wickets, and the required rate began to rise.  When the final over began, Gordon had reached 6-152, needing 13 to win.  It was a chaotic final over, delivered by Harry Manenti, including two run outs, a catch, a boundary and three wides.  Quincy Titterton needed four from the last ball to win the game, but failed to make contact and the batsmen could only run through for a bye.  Sydney were the Sixers Champions by two runs, and host the grand final at Drummoyne on Sunday.

Sams plus Chatswood equals runs

Two themes have run through Five Things this season: that Chatswood Oval is a road, and that Anthony Sams is in good nick.  Guess what happens when Sams plays at Chatswood?  Gordon posted a total of 7-260 on Saturday, mostly through James Newton (63 not out) and Tym Crawford (54).  Anywhere else, that’s a solid score: on Chatswood, it looked slightly under par, and so it proved.  Chatswood had a glimmer of a chance when RPs lost their second wicket at 34 in the sixth over, but Sams and Riley Ayre grabbed the game by the scruff of the neck and put together an unbroken stand of 228.  Sams seems to have reduced batting to a simple formula this season: someone bowls a ball to him, and he whacks it.  He seems to whack the short ones further than the fuller ones, but they all get whacked.  At one point on Saturday, he whacked Quincy Titterton for four 4s in succession.  He finished on 134 from 119 balls, going past 700 runs in all formats this season. 

It's Green Shield time

Green Shield is a tremendous competition: it’s an uncynical place where dreams are still intact and no one worries about whether that scratchy 21 is enough for you to keep your place in Third Grade.  The last round before the finals is played tomorrow, and Parramatta maintained its unbeaten record in Round 6 by beating Mosman, who were previously unbeaten.  Parramatta’s win was built upon a bright innings of 92 by Advith Borredy, who has been phenomenally consistent, with 67 against Bankstown, 62 against University of NSW, 34 against North Sydney, 53 against Blacktown and 84 not out against Wests.  Not everyone in the competition looks quite as ready for Premier cricket, although the kid from Mosman who already has his mullet and moustache in place looks set for a lively circuiting career.

Penrith looks threatening

The Panthers may only be ninth on the First Grade table, but their recent form is excellent, and the team seems to be operating highly efficiently at the right end of the season.  They took Easts apart on the weekend: Hunar Verma collected a couple of early wickets, and then Liam Doddrell (6-31) swept through the innings with a lively, accurate spell.  Then the batsmen chased down a modest target inside 24 overs, Brent Williams completing the game by cracking Marcus Atallah for six.  Penrith has now strung together three impressive wins in succession, and it would be no surprise if they were to win through to the finals.

The Bears are back on track

Is UTS North Sydney out of its mid-season slump?  A strong win over Hawkesbury returned the Bears to the top six and suggested that they may be ready to correct a slump that led to three defeats in succession and spoiled their very promising start to the season.  James Greenslade (59), Tom Jagot (51) and James Rew (46) laid the foundation for a competitive total, which was ably defended by Ollie Knight (5-48) and the tireless veteran Robbie Aitken, who claimed 2-34 from ten cunning overs.    North Sydney is about to lose the services of Rew, the Somerset keeper-batsman, who has performed strongly this season but has been called up to the England under-19 side whose Australian tour begins later this month.

Five Things We Learned from Round Nine

Sydney University enjoys being in a corner

At the risk of getting repetitive, Sydney University continues to demonstrate its knack of winning games from tough positions.  For lengthy stretches of the game on Saturday, the Students were outplayed by Parramatta – like when Patrick Xie and Nick Bertus added 104 for the third wicket in quick time, or when Evan Pitt reduced the home side to 3-18, knocking the top off the innings with some impressive away-swing bowling.  But, most of the time, University finds someone to stand up.  On this occasion, Jordan Gauci and Ryan McElduff rebuilt the innings with a brisk partnership of 84, Charlie Litchfield boosted the run-rate with a middle-order cameo, and two bowlers with modest batting credentials – Caelan Maladay and Devlin Malone – saw the side home with some well-aimed blows at the death, including the second six of Malone’s First Grade career.  The win keeps University in second place on the ladder, although the number of close results the Students have contested means that they have a worse quotient than Penrith, who are tenth.

Welcome to Sydney, Private Player

If you followed the match between Campbelltown-Camden and Easts on Play HQ, you’ll have noticed that Private Player had a blinder, following a handy spell of bowling with a decisive innings of 97.  Private Player turns out to be Louis Kimber, a 25 year-old from Leicestershire, who bats and bowls off-spin.  Kimber scored his maiden first-class hundred in the last English summer, although that achievement was accomplished in the middle of an absurd run-feast, as Leicestershire replied to Sussex’s 588 by running up 4 for 756.  Anyway, on Saturday, Kimber was impeccable, turning in ten tidy overs to take 2-28 (including the key scalp of Angus Robson, who has also played for Leicestershire), and then dominated his partnership with Toby Flynn-Duncombe, whacking 97 from 90 balls.  Kimber looked set for a raid hundred before he played a weird stroke against his fellow English import, Tom Prest, attempting to drive through cover off the back foot to an off break that was at least a foot outside leg stump.  It didn’t end well.  Still, it was an impressive first appearance and gives a further boost to the Ghosts’ mid-season improvement.

Everyone wants to be club captain at St George now

Club captain at St George is a big job – so big, apparently, that it needs two people to do it.  This year, it’s shared by First Grade all-rounder Luke Bartier and Third Grade seamer Paul Francis, both of whom have good reason to remember Round Nine fondly.  At Manly Oval, early wickets to Nick Stapleton had put Manly on the back foot before the home side recovered to 2-64, with Jack Edwards blasting sixes all around the ground.  At which point, Bartier came into the attack, and everything went pear-shaped.  With his first ball, he had Edwards, driving expansively, caught behind (for 57 off 29).  In his second over, Matt Brewster wafted at a ball outside off stump, and nicked off to Tom Vane-Tempest.  And the wickets kept falling – from 6.1 overs, Bartier collected 6-11.  St George tumbled over the line to take the points, although Mickey Edwards was outstanding, taking 5-19.  In Third Grade, Bartier’s co-captain did even better.  Defending 173, he came on to bowl as first change with Manly at 1-25 and grabbed 8-26 in only eight overs.  He took eight consecutive wickets, including Ellis Raymond, Dominic Wheeler and Sam Webber in a single over.  What’s striking about these two performances is not only that they came at the expense of Manly teams at the top of each competition table, but that they both came out of nowhere: in First Grade this season, Bartier had bowled only a handful of overs for his two wickets, while Francis has been no more than steady in Thirds (and took only ten wickets in the whole of last season). 

RPs are clinical when it all clicks

Congratulations to Ben Montedoro, who made his First Grade debut for Randwick-Petersham last week, on the back of several solid all-round contributions in Seconds.  We mention this partly because he’s earned it, and partly because, otherwise, you might not have noticed he was there – he didn’t get a chance to bat or bowl as RPs crushed Sydney in an impressively clinical display.  The seamers were relentless, suffocating Sydney’s top order, and then the classy Tawanda Muyeye (90 not out) and the ridiculously consistent Anthony Sams (65 not out) cruised past the target of 199 with more than six overs to spare.  On their day, RPs can beat any side in the competition, which makes their current standing – 13th – difficult to understand.

That competition you’ve forgotten about is nearly over

If you’ve forgotten that there’s a competition called the First Grade Limited Overs Cup, all is forgiven.  Everyone else has, too.  But it exists, and next Saturday’s round is the last before the Qualifying Finals on 29 January.  As far as we can tell (and we’re relying on PlayHQ, so we could very well be wrong), thirteen clubs have a mathematical chance of ending up in the top six.  Entertainingly, the top six clubs are all equal on points and separated only by quotient: Northern District, St George, University of NSW, Campbelltown-Camden, Sydney University and Blacktown all go into the final round needing only to win to reach the finals.  Behind them, on 13, sit Parramatta, Penrith and Sydney, while (on 12) Sutherland, Bankstown, Wests and Mosman need a gigantic bonus-point win to have a chance.  The big match-ups are at Hurstville, where the loser of Sydney University and St George risks dropping out of the top six; at Asquith, where Sydney has a chance of upsetting the leaders, Northern District; and at David Phillips, where University of NSW and Parramtta meet in what could become a straight playoff for a finals place.

Five Things We Learned from Round Eight

The silly season evens things up

Several clubs fielded unfamiliar-looking sides last weekend, as they struggled to cope with the loss of players to the Big Bash and the interstate under-19 carnival.  And that contributed to a number of upset results around Sydney.  Blacktown beat Randwick-Petersham; Wests defended a small total against Northern District; Fairfield lost only one wicket in beating North Sydney; University of NSW crushed Mosman.  None of these results was easily predictable, and together they have created a remarkably close competition table: only three points separate fourth place (University of NSW) from ninth (Bankstown).  It’s too early to say that the premiers, Mosman, can’t reach the top six: it’s true that they sit in eleventh place, but they’re only a bonus-point win away from the top six.  Many teams will still be scrambled in Round 9, on 7 January, and it’s likely that we’ll be no closer then to having a settled top six.

Wests upset the odds at Asquith

Possibly the biggest upset of the round was at Asquith, where Northern District needed to win at home against Wests to move up from third to second, and you would have backed them to do it when Ross Pawson struck four times in his first few overs, reducing the Magpies to 3-11 and then 4-26.  But the back-up seamers were less penetrative, Liam Sparke dug in for a dogged 58, and Ollie Hing (against his old club) and Mohammad Irfan milked some handy runs from the spinners.  9 for 177 was certainly a recovery, but it looked a long way short of a challenging target, especially as Scott Rodgie made a lively start.  At 1-65, Northern District was strolling towards the points.  But Hanno Jacobs removed Rodgie and David Lowery in quick succession, and Wests built the pressure with tight bowling and keen fielding.  One decent partnership would have been enough to get the Rangers over the line, but Tom Brooks and Josh Clarke prevented that by picking up wickets at regular intervals.  With ten overs to go, Northern District needed just 33 runs with four wickets in hand, but then Pawson was stumped aiming to hit Brooks into some distant part of Hornsby, and in the next over Mitchell Crayn tried to dab Irfan to third man, but only got the ball as far as Hing’s gloves.  There were two overs remaining when Ben Randall miscued Clarke to mid-on, and the entire Wests team engulfed the catcher, Arnav Raina, in celebration.

Harry Manenti is the centre of the action

It shouldn’t be possible to take four wickets and score 110 not out from 111 in a 50-over game, and lose.  Harry Manenti did it.  Then again, has any First Grader ever been involved in the run-outs of five of his partners in a single innings?  Harry Manenti did it.  He was the pick of Sydney’s bowlers against Easts, but a positive 76 from opener Nicholas Taylor lifted the Dolphins to 7-249.  That target wasn’t beyond Sydney’s capabilities, but no-one stayed quite long enough with Manenti, mostly because they kept getting run out.  Matt Rodgers was the first, failing to beat Taylor’s return to Max Glen; Beau McClintock was then involved in a horrendous “yes-no-sorry” mixup, wondering whether to attempt a second run after a blooped pull shot at Sam Skelly.  Alex Glendenning was run out by the length of the pitch when he turned to complete a second run only to find that Manenti had never left his crease; Kain Anderson was also run out trying for a second, but failing to beat Skelly’s return. Fittingly, the game ended when Craig DiBlasio became the fifth player run out in the Tigers’ innings.  All that chaos rather overshadowed two excellent performances: Manenti’s innings, which included some sweetly timed drives and four muscular sixes, and a miserly spell from Jono Cook, who applied the brakes on Sydney’s middle order.

Arjun Nair prevailed in the batfest

The match between Fairfield-Liverpool and UTS North Sydney can be summed up in a single stat: Arjun Nair 5-23, every other bowler 5-445.  The Rosedale pitch was so flat – and the Fairfield batting so good – that North Sydney didn’t claim its first wicket until 212 runs were on the board, when Jaydyn Simmons was stumped for 95.  Yuvraj Sharma batted through the innings for an unbeaten 131, but Fairfield didn’t accelerate as they might have, and a total of 1-253 was good without being out of reach.  James Rew batted brightly in the Powerplay, Tim Reynolds hit some powerful strokes, and North Sydney might have claimed the points but for Nair’s cunning and control.  Nair has developed an unusual method by which he holds his bowling arm behind his back as he approaches the batsman; whether this is designed to keep his action under control, or as some deceptive manoeuvre, isn’t clear, but it was certainly effective on Saturday. 

Bowler’s name?

Northern District at least gave Wests a touch-up in Fifth Grade, although it wasn’t the fault of Wests’ opening bowler, who took 2-40 and scored a defiant 17.  His name?  According to PlayHQ (so who can really be sure?), it’s Veeravenkataganeshsivakrishna Prasad Gandham, which we are announcing (on the basis of absolutely no research at all) as the longest name in Premier Cricket since the days of the legendary Redfern medium pacer John Elicius Benedict Bernard Placid Quirk Carrington Dwyer.

Five Things We learned from Round Seven

The Students keep finding ways to win

Last week we discussed Sydney University’s ability to win matches from unpromising situations.  Exhibit B is now last weekend’s match with Fairfield-Liverpool, and a team certainly knows it’s in an unpromising situation when it finds itself relying on Caelan Maladay’s batting.  Before Saturday, from 59 games in First Grade, Maladay had achieved a highest score of 17 and a batting average of exactly 7.  So when he went to the crease with the score at 7 for 140, Fairfield had some justification for feeling confident.  But Maladay blocked, nudged, edged, poked and generally refused to get out.  He even latched on to a full delivery from Arjun Nair and cracked it through long-on for four.  He reached 21 before spooning left-arm spinner Cameron Frendo to long-off, and his partnership with Tim Cummins lifted University to a total of 191 which, though below par, was at least defendable.  Fairfield’s openers made a lightning start, ripping 33 runs from the first four overs of their innings.  But then Rex Greaves, with his first delivery, removed Brock Fitton with the help of a sharp, low catch by Cummins.  Greaves and the spinners, Devlin Malone and Dylan Hunter, applied the brakes on the middle order, and Kieran Tate (3-39) and Caelan Maladay (2-39) took wickets at regular intervals, so that Fairfield was bowled out 42 runs short of its target.  Despite the importance of Maladay’s contribution, the clear player of the match was University captain Cummins, who held his side’s innings together with an unbeaten 62 (during which he passed 5000 runs in First Grade), before completing five dismissals behind the stumps.  It was the third time in Cummins’ First Grade career that he’s scored fifty or more as well as dismissing five batsmen in an innings.

Sutherland are nobody’s pushovers

In a round full of upsets, perhaps the biggest surprise was Sutherland not just beating, but thumping, UTS North Sydney.  The Bears went into the game 18 places above the Sharks on the ladder, and that didn’t seem likely to change when Sutherland prodigy Sam Konstas slapped the second legitimate ball of the day straight to cover (leaving him stranded on 902 runs for Sutherland before Christmas).  But Jarryd Biviano remains a very dangerous white-ball batsman, and with good support from Englishman Jack Leaning, he launched a highly successful counter-attack.   Leaning fell just short of his fifty, hitting a return catch to Mac Jenkins, but Biviano played so well that his 109 came from only 101 deliveries, with 10 fours and three sixes.  It was his eighth First Grade century for Sutherland.  Set a target of 269, North Sydney was pegged back by early wickets from Andrew Ritchie and Liam Hehir, and while James Rew, James Greenslade and Tim Reynolds all made solid starts, the Bears never caught up with the run rate they needed.  Tom Straker bowled accurately and thoughtfully and cashed in one some desperate strokes late in the day, returning the best figures (4-22) of his short First Grade career so far.  The win still leaves the young Sutherland side propping up the bottom of the competition table, but it also sends a signal that they can’t be taken lightly.

There are two theories about Ryan O’Beirne’s performance against Manly on the weekend.

First theory: he had a shocker.  Easts lost by 80 runs, and O’Beirne’s ten overs were plundered for 81 runs.  He bowled eleven wides (some of which were very, very wide) and a no-ball, so he personally donated two extra overs to Manly.  His first over was an 11-baller.  Also, he could use a haircut.

Second theory: he had a blinder.  He took five wickets, all good ones, in only ten overs.  He produced sharp bounce and went past the bat several times.  Also, he hit 26 not out from only 23 balls.  What more do you want?

Luke Webb can be a handful

It’s probably not unfair to say that Campbelltown’s left-armer Luke Webb isn’t the first player who springs to mind when people talk about new-ball bowlers in Sydney (if that’s something people actually do).  And yet, and yet… every so often, Webb has a day when the ball swings late for him, and he suddenly becomes a very difficult proposition.  He had one of those days on Saturday.  Campbelltown was defending a solid score of 7-224, built around Nick Appleton’s 76.  But Webb scuttled St George’s reply almost before it began.  In his first over, Nicholas Stapleton clipped an inducker off his pads straight to Jackson Isakka behind square; Luke Bartier was surprised by bounce and nicked off to slip; Kaleb Phillips shouldered arms to his first ball, only to watch an inswinger clatter back his off stump.  St George at that point were 3-4, and Webb had 3-2.  Tom Vane-Tempest prevented the hat-trick, but Webb ended the day with 4-33, and the Ghosts took the points by the very comfortable margin of 91 runs.

We have the conference finalists

The conference semi-finals in the Harry Solomons Little Bash produced some unusually fascinating contests.   In the Thunder Conference, Sydney University faced the only team to have beaten them in the shortest format this season – Penrith.  On that occasion, however, Penrith had been turbo-charged by Sam Billings, who is now off on BBL duty, and it was the Students who took control of the game through a belligerent partnership of 116 between Dylan Hunter (63 off 39) and Damien Mortimer (58 off 39).  Tim Cummins (40) faced only 19 balls but hit four of them over the boundary, and Penrith was faced with a tough target of 197.  Tyran Liddiard looked dangerous early on, but was bowled by debutant Hugo Ikeda’s second ball in the top grade.  Ikeda also removed Jordan Watson in his first over, had 3-4 after bowling seven balls, and finished a memorable day with 4-20 as Penrith folded for 119.  Blacktown upset Bankstown thanks to Eknoor Singh’s high-class 97 from 57.  Bankstown had the firepower to chase down 215, but Nic Carruthers was run out second ball, and when Ryan Felsch fell for 36 off 19, Blacktown took complete control.  It probably wasn’t an upset that Sydney defeated St George, but it was certainly a surprise that the Tigers defended a total of only 134.  Alex Glendenning knocked the top off the innings, and the Saints middle order subsided to Craig Di Blasio’s left arm darts.  And at Coogee, Gordon outbatted title-holders Randwick-Petersham, blasting 4-221 thanks to Dale McKay’s 99 not out from 53 and Tym Crawford who, despite an injury that prevented him from bowling, whacked 89 from 43.  Early wickets to Ben Parsons (4-23) reduced Randwick-Petersham to 6 for 59, after which Ben Mitchell (67) and Ashley Burton (55 not out) saved face, but not the game.  The conference finals will be held on 15 January.

Five Things We Learned from Round Six (and one shameless plug)

The Students win the tight ones

Teams that reach the finals generally win matches that they shouldn’t.  Sydney University has shown that knack more than once this season, and pulled off another escape act on Saturday, defeating Randwick-Petersham in a gripping finish by just 11 runs.  The Students produced a limp performance with the bat on the first day, struggling to reach 183.  Dylan Hunter, who’s in the form of his life, mixed dogged defence with some fierce strokes to remain unbeaten on 66, but Jason Ralston and Daya Singh sliced through the lower order, and it took a few improbable runs from Devlin Malone to lift the total to something defendable.  Randwick-Petersham batted slowly but steadily to be 1 for 47 overnight – 137 needed with nine wickets in hand, which, since three of the top five had experience of first-class cricket, looked like an undemanding chase.  But Caelan Malady was excellent on the second morning, removing Ashley Burton and then taking the crucial wicket of Riley Ayre.  Kieran Tate held a sharp return catch from Cam Hawkins, and at 4 for 57, the game was wide open.  Anthony Sams and Tawanda Muyeye steadied things for a while, but Muyeye hasn’t seen all that much leg spin in Kent, and he nicked a tentative back-foot push at Malone into the safe hands of Tim Cummins.  Then Angus McTaggart thrust his pad out to a straight one, and at six for 85 the Students were on top.  Everything rested on Anthony Sams, who responded magnificently, shepherding the tail and punishing anything loose.  Ben Mitchell played calmly for a while, but Maladay returned to remove him and Ralston.  With twelve runs needed for the win, Sams slapped Malone to cover, where Charles Litchfield held a sharp catch diving to his left.  The result left University in third spot, and Randwick-Petersham 12th, though that’s certainly not a true indication of the gap between the sides.  Incidentally, it’s possible to argue that University won because its ex-RPs players (Hunter and Maladay, 4-50) did better than RPs ex-University players (Hawkins, 28 and Mitchell, 24).

More than one highway runs through Chatswood

In its last two home games, Gordon has scored 408 and 412.  At different points in these games, its score has reached 6 for 342 and 2 for 313.  It has lost both games.  It’s ridiculous. 

Chatswood Oval has never had long boundaries, especially square of the wicket, and this season the pitch and outfield could easily be cut out and relaid onto the nearby Pacific Highway.  While Jack James and Tym Crawford were building their excellent partnership of 223 against Easts last Saturday, every defensive push that beat the field went for four.  Of course, as long as the conditions are the same for each side, there’s no unfairness, but some ridiculous statistics are being compiled.  In Easts’ colossal innings of 463, Will Simpson converted his maiden First Grade century into a massive 174, while Englishman Oliver Cox announced his arrival with 116 and opener Blake Harper notched his first half-century in Firsts.  Cox struck a crucial blow on the second day when he removed Crawford during a short spell bowling comically harmless leg-breaks, but the game was decided by Sam Skelly, whose hostile late overs, combined with scoreboard pressure, swung the game in favour of the Dolphins.  Yet again the sympathy vote goes to Tym Crawford: in his last three games, he’s scored 66, 53 and 144, as well as taking 5-55, and lost each time.  It’s not an especially fair game.

Manly seems untroubled by its late start

Speaking of things that make no sense, Manly now has an 8-point lead on top of the First Grade ladder – despite the fact that, because of rain, the team didn’t even make it on to the ground in Rounds 1 and 2.  The seasiders have won their last two games outright (and actually came close to winning another outright against Blacktown).  The match against Mosman was closer than that makes it sound: Mosman began the game strongly, reaching one for 95, before collapsing horribly to be all out for 140.  Ryan Hadley, maintaining a lively pace and attacking the stumps, did almost all the damage, ending up with 8-48.  Manly made heavy weather of the chase, struggling to 7 for 108 at stumps.  But Hadley was in no mood to lose, and last Saturday he added some vital runs in company with Ollie Davies, who returned from State duty for the second day.  Elijah Eales bowled well for his 5-57, but Manly led by 14 on the first innings.  Mosman then batted positively in an effort to set Manly a target, but were reined in again by Hadley, who finished up with a remarkable 14 wickets in the match.  In the context of the game, a target of 186 looked challenging, but Manly ran it down in less than 22 overs.  Ollie Davies and Jay Lenton started with a brutal assault on the new ball, and then Joel Davies saw the chase through with an unbeaten 78 from 49.   The reigning premiers now find themselves in eleventh place and with plenty of work to do.

We have our first finalists

The first eight finalists of the season were decided on Sunday, in the last of the preliminary rounds of the Harry Solomons Little Bash.  St George, Gordon, Sydney and Manly will play in the semi-finals of the Sixers Conference, while in the Thunder Conference, Bankstown, Sydney University, Penrith and Blacktown go through.  Sydney University sealed its place with a thumping win over Parramatta: Dylan Hunter followed a career-best 4-25 with an astonishing 54 from 28 balls, including a lost ball which – appropriately enough – was last seen bouncing into the Emergency Ward at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital.  Hayden Kerr hit the ball just as hard and just as far for 72 from 49, and University ran down its respectable target of 156 with 29 balls to spare.  Bankstown sealed top spot in the conference with a close win over Wests, driven by Nick Carruthers’ extraordinary innings: in pursuit of 121, he belted 77 from 33 balls, 70 of them in boundaries, while eight of his team-mates managed 36 runs between them.  The closest game of the Sixers Conference was at Waverley Oval, where Waverley needed 16 from Ben Mitchell’s final over.  Mitchell was equal to the task, however, and Tom Coady failed even to make contact with any of the first three balls.  Even though the left-hander smacked 12 runs from the last three deliveries, by then the game was out of reach.

Bowling in Third Grade is not much fun just now

There have been some unusually tall scores in Third Grade this season, culminating in an absolute run feast at Birchgrove Oval.  Sydney took first use of a faultless pitch and ran up the little matter of 2 for 419 (from only 72 overs) on the first day of its game against Blacktown.  Opener Henry Kirk led the way with an unbeaten 210, made from only 209 balls, with 28 fours and four 6s.  Kirk, who started out with Northern District, has had an odd career with Sydney: he had already made hundreds in Seconds and Thirds for the club, but has tended to mix very large scores with rather small ones, with not much in between.  Anyway, he thoroughly dominated the Blacktown attack, and shared a second wicket stand of 376 with former Western Australian Tyler Robertson, who contributed 169, his first century for the Tigers.  Blacktown couldn’t have been criticised if they’d fallen over on the second day; instead, though, they gave Sydney a real scare, reaching five for 362 before the game ended in a draw.  Opener Remi Ferdinands contributed a hundred of his own, while Hassan Rauf made 89.  Over the two days, seven wickets fell for 781 runs, and no bowler took more than a single wicket.

Nothing says “It’s Christmas” like an obscure cricket history book

Anyone still looking for the perfect gift for that hard-to-please, literate, cricket obsessed relative, could a lot worse than picking up a copy of Black Swan Summer, which is undoubtedly the best book ever to explain the connections between Western Australia’s first Sheffield Shield season, Communism, beer strikes and Sir Laurence Olivier – mostly because it’s the only book ever to attempt it.  You’ll find it in all bookstores where obscure cricket books are sold, or by clicking here and asking Dymocks to send you one.  Or more than one.

Five Things We Learned From Round Five

Nick Larkin is still the big wicket

Sent in to bat by Gordon, Sydney University made an uneventful start against the bowling of Callum Bladen and Quincy Titterton (whose name makes us want to shout “Five points to Gryffindor” every time he takes a wicket).  Then Tym Crawford turned the game on its head, attacking the stumps and grabbing four wickets before lunch to leave the Students in a desperate position.  But Nick Larkin is still the big wicket, and he stood firm, batting all the way through the innings before he was last out, for 183 in a total of 269.  On any other day, Crawford (5-55) would have been the star, but Larkin’s innings was ridiculously dominant, mixing calm defence with brutally effective strokeplay.  He was at his best in the late stages of the innings, when he protected the tail, monopolising the strike, but still managed to take ten runs an over from the Gordon spinners.  He struck 23 fours and seven 6s – 134 runs in boundaries, many of them with ferocious pull shots: he was ruthless against anything short.  And it turned out to be a match-winning innings.  Spare a thought for Tym Crawford, who really didn’t deserve to lose: midway through the second afternoon, he had followed his five wickets with a fifty and his side needed 69 to win with seven wickets in hand.  Then Kieran Tate and the unavoidable Devlin Malone triggered a collapse in which six wickets tumbled for 13 runs.   University’s second-highest scorer made 24; its best bowler conceded 124 runs, yet the Students won.  It wasn’t the most logical of games.  (Titterton, incidentally, finished the game without a wicket or a run – no points for Gryffindor.) 

Jono Craig-Dobson bats now

If The Grade Cricketer is right, and there’s nothing better than scoring a hundred for a losing team, then Jonathon Craig-Dobson probably had a very noisy circuit on Saturday night.  After 35 matches in First Grade for St George, Craig-Dobson has established himself as a very tidy swing bowler, but his batting has always remained stuck somewhere between “not really an all-rounder” and “sometimes gets a few at number nine”.  Before Saturday, he’d never made it to thirty in First Grade.   But when Arjun Nair bowled Blake Macdonald in the first over of St George’s innings, Craig-Dobson was sent in as nightwatchman.  He completed the first part of his task, remaining unbeaten on 7 overnight, and when play resumed he helped Matthew Hopkins add 64 for the second wicket.  Nair struck again to remove Hopkins, but still Craig-Dobson stuck around, carrying the score to 2 for 152 in partnership with Nick Stapleton.  It wasn’t a flashy innings: he was solid in defence, left the ball alone when he could, played some punchy drives and displayed a left-hander’s preference for flicking the ball through midwicket.  Fairfield, defending only 249, looked out of the contest before Nair and Yuvraj Sharma grabbed three quick wickets, St George’s top order collapsing around the unlikely figure of Craig-Dobson.  With good support from the tail – which used to be him, not long before – Craig-Dobson reached his hundred from 200 deliveries, and kept St George in the game until he fell to a sharp catch at slip.  For the second time in as many games, Nair cleaned up with his off-spin, finishing with 7-63.  The result enabled Fairfield to leapfrog St George into the top six.

That’s probably not the last hundred you’ll see from Sam Konstas

With the greatest of respect to Jono Craig-Dobson, the maiden century with the greater long-term significance was probably the one scored at Pratten Park.  In a perfect world, Sam Konstas might have preferred not to have notched his first First Grade hundred in the second innings, after losing on the first, but he had already top-scored in Sutherland’s first effort, grinding out a stubborn 68 as wickets tumbled around him.  Given the opportunity to bat with greater freedom in the second dig, he crunched 112 from only 104 deliveries.  At times he enjoyed a little luck against Tom Brooks’ leg breaks, but he hit the ball freely and gave his side a glimpse of a chance of stealing a reverse outright win.  Usually, alarm bells go off when a young player turns out for three clubs in as many seasons (Konstas has already played for Easts and St George), but Konstas seems to have the talent, technique and temperament to build a very successful career in the game.  This week he followed his hundred with selection in the NSW Under 19s, so he’s already on his way.

Thursday afternoon cricket was fun

Almost no-one remembers it, but Twenty20 cricket actually began over fifty years ago in England, where several leagues exploited the long summer twilight to play 20-over knockout competitions on weekdays after working hours.  Now the Little Bash has returned T20 cricket to its distant roots, with a round of games played on a Thursday afternoon, giving plenty of supporters a reason to slip out of work a touch early.  Probably the biggest game was at University Oval, where the two unbeaten sides in the Thunder Conference played each other, and Sydney University cruised past Bankstown largely thanks to Nick Larkin’s brutal 70 from 42 balls.  University is all but certain to feature in the finals; but the picture is far less clear in the Sixers Conference, where four sides (St George, Gordon, Sydney and Manly) each share the lead with three wins and a loss.  The pick of the games in the Sixers Conference was at David Phillips, where Manly ran up 165.  University of NSW looked just off the pace against an attack including two former Test bowlers (Stephen O’Keefe and Morne Morkel) and needed 36 from the last three overs.  Good overs by Joel Davies and Jake Carden turned that equation into 26 from the last over, which seemed hopeless – but the Bees got twenty of them, with Hayden McLean swiping Morkel for two sixes.

Mosman has some tough selectors

Last August, Charlie Dunnett made his first appearance for the Hampshire Second XI, against Sussex, scoring 56 before taking 3-31 with his medium-pacers.  He’d already played Minor Counties cricket for Berkshire.  He has a foot on the fringes of the professional game in England. And if that doesn’t scream, “might be worth a try in Fifth Grade”, then what does?  That’s where Mosman put him in Round Four, and Dunnett followed his 6-48 against Blacktown by scoring 100 not out from number seven in the order.  Of course, performances like that sing out “it’s a risk, but let’s see how he goes in Fours”.  And in Fourth Grade last weekend, Dunnett took 3-14 and hit 46.  Obviously Mosman’s selectors are hard to impress: let’s hope Dunnett doesn’t get too complacent about hanging on to his spot in Fourths.

Five Things We Learned from Round Four

Devlin Malone is in decent form

What with Liam Robertson’s retirement, Dugald Holloway’s injury and Charlie Dummer’s holiday, the Sydney University side has rather a different look to it at the moment, but the Students are still finding ways to win – many of which are called Devlin Malone.  Late on the second afternoon at Pratten Park, Western Suburbs looked well placed to challenge University’s target of 363.  Josh Clarke had compiled an outstanding century, and opener Arnav Raina – making his debut – had played impressively to reach 90.  Wests had worked their way up to one for 196 – another 168 needed with nine wickets in hand.  But Rex Greaves and Kieran Tate each grabbed a wicket, and then Malone went to work, taking six of the last seven wickets to fall and ending up with 6-93 to seal the win.  He did even better the following day.  University set Fairfield an imposing target of 212 in the Little Bash, after Damien Mortimer and Dylan Hunter shared a furious third-wicket stand of 171 (the second-highest third wicket partnership in the history of the competition, and University’s highest in T20 cricket for any wicket).  Hunter traumatised Jake Wholahan, moving from 79 to 103 by lashing the off-spinner for four successive sixes in the arc between mid-wicket and long-on.  Any hope Fairfield had of approaching the target was snuffed out in Malone’s first over, when he grabbed two wickets.  After three overs, he had five for five, and although his last over yielded up two singles, his 5-7 remained the cheapest five-wicket haul in the history of the competition.  Malone was Sydney’s leading wicket-taker last season; already this year he has another 25 wickets.  His recent appearance in the NSW Second XI shouldn’t be the last representative match he plays this season.

It was a good week for batting

It took a while, but the sun came out, and Sydney’s batsmen rediscovered how to play two-day cricket.  Round Four was full of tall scores and improbable chases: Gordon came within two strokes of overhauling North Sydney’s 415, and Mosman ran up its highest ever score – 8 for 521 – only for Blacktown to reply with 9 for 385.  Parramatta chased down Campebelltown’s 323, with Ryan Hackney’s 144 trumping 117 from Toby Flynn-Duncombe.  Brent Williams racked up 188 in Penrith’s 8 for 353, but the game ended in a stalemate, Jack Attenborough hitting 85 as University of NSW reached 8 for 312.  In the early rounds, there were plenty of rain-affected draws: in Round Four, there were four draws in First Grade simply because it was too hard to take wickets.

It's a funny game

Weird match of the round was at Asquith Oval, a ground Five Things remembers fondly because, see that red-brick house across the road? – he once hit a ball into it (although he was also hit into the trees at the northern end, so it evens out).  Anyway, Fairfield began the match in dominant fashion, with Brock Fitton and Jaydyn Symmyns (sorry, Simmons) sharing a slow but steady opening stand of 141.  Which is a pretty solid platform, right?  Fitton, formerly of Hawkesbury, compiled his first century in First Grade, a patient 129, while Simmons contributed 62.  After which, everything went pear-shaped.  The first three wickets fell to Ross Pawson and Toby Gray for the addition of just one run, after which Arjun Nair and Luke Ohrynowsky left without scoring.  In fact, after the openers, only keeper Max Farmer reached double figures, and Northern District was set the undemanding target of 230.  Although Corey Miller departed early, David Lowery, Chris Green and Lachlan Shaw carried the score to 2 for 89, at which point only one result looked likely.  But wickets kept falling at regular intervals, usually to Nair’s off-spin, and it was left to the inevitable Scott Rodgie to keep his team in the game.   Rodgie couldn’t be faulted: he built handy partnerships with Ross Pawson and Chad Soper, and steered Northern Districts to within ten runs of victory.  But then Soper shouldered arms to a ball from Nair that was judged to be on target.  Jack Cincotta played three impeccable forward lunges, an unsuccessful leg-side flick, and was then given out lbw when pressing forward again.  Rodgie was left stranded on 89, Nair ended with 5-46, and Fairfield collected the points from a rather irrational game.

Mac Jenkins would like to play Gordon every week, please

After four rounds, UTS North Sydney sits on top of the Premier Cricket ladder, largely thanks to the efforts of all-rounder Mac Jenkins.  Jenkins has been a part of the North Sydney side for just over three seasons, contributing usefully without, it’s fair to say, setting the place on fire.  Before this season, he’d passed fifty only twice in 41 matches, in which he’d taken 41 wickets.  In the first three rounds of this season, he hadn’t taken a wicket.  None of that mattered in the game against Gordon at Chatswood, which he dominated, hitting his first century in First Grade before claiming his first five-wicket haul.  He wasn’t under immense pressure when he went in to bat – the Bears had already reached 3 for 199 – but he played a compact, mature innings in the final session to push his side’s total beyond 400.  Jenkins has a habit of opening the bat face slightly when he drives, so that he hits the ball square, which turned out to be a highly efficient way of finding the shorter boundaries at Chatswood.  But his composure with the ball was impressive.  Axel Cahlin (140), Tym Crawford (66) and James Newton (67) batted so well that Gordon reached 4 for 293, and an upset looked very possible.  But Jenkins – left arm orthodox spin – had Newton caught by James Rew behind the stumps, and the same combination accounted for Smit Doshi two balls later.  To its credit, Gordon never stopped chasing the target, although Jenkins kept on picking up wickets.   When Jenkins took the ball for the 85th over of the innings, the score stood at 8 for 405.  Connor Cook hit a two and a single and then – with the field scattered and not a close fieldsman to be seen – Quincy Titterton inexplicably attempted a reverse sweep, which he feathered through to Rew.  Then Nicholas Toohey spooned his second ball into the air from a leading edge, and Jenkins closed out the game with an acrobatic diving catch from his own bowling.  Jenkins ended the game with 123 not out and 6-114, and if he ever has a better match in First Grade, North Sydney will probably win it by more than seven runs.

The Little Bash is warming up

We’re now three rounds in to the Harry Solomons Little Bash, and the T20 competition is starting to take shape.  The biggest clash on Sunday was at Drummoyne, where Sydney played host to a Manly side stocked with BBL players.  The match began according to script, with Manly holding the hosts to a modest score of 123.  But Manly’s reply was suffocated at birth, with Alex Glendenning and spinner Craig Di Blasio choking the run rate and grabbing early wickets.  Di Blasio bowled the dangerous Jack Edwards; Jay Lenton fell cheaply to Harry Manenti; Oliver Davies and Joel Davies got started and got out.  By the time Jacob Bethell wrapped up the innings with 3-13, Manly had subsided for only 69, giving Sydney top place on the Sixers Conference ladder.  Sydney University shares top place on the Thunder ladder with Bankstown, for whom the in-form Nick Carruthers smashed ten sixes in his 99 from 38 balls against Parramatta.  Ryan Felsch also made a telling contribution, following his 42 from 20 balls with a spell of 3-4.

Five Things We Learned from Round Three

The Bees are resilient

There are times when it isn’t easy playing cricket for University of NSW: the club seems to be engaged in a more or less constant struggle with a University administration that hasn’t quite figured out that, in order to play cricket, you need access to a ground.  However, adversity breeds resilience, and with pretty much the same group of players who finished ninth last season, the Bees have raced out of the blocks this season, holding a share of second place after three rounds.  Things looked grim on the first day when Angus Robson (son of the man who was University of NSW cricket for nearly twenty years) anchored Easts’ innings with an immensely professional 161.  375 is a tough target anywhere, but if you need to chase it, you may as well do it at David Phillips – and it helps if you have Matt Gilkes in the side.  Coming in after Sufan Hassan and Jack Attenborough had laid a strong platform, Gilkes teed off, racing to 201 not out from only 150 balls.  He hit fifteen fours and cleared the boundary 12 times, registering his highest First Grade score and his second First Grade double century.  Gilkes saved several of his bigger hits for Marcus Atallah’s off-spin – possibly as punishment for Atallah leaving the Bees for Easts a couple of seasons ago.  It was a pretty decent week for Gilkes, who hit 72 and 48 in the Shield match against Queensland at Drummoyne.  It’s reasonable safe to say he’s in tidy form at present.

Jimmy Greenslade had a breakthrough

North Sydney’s win on the weekend was doubly satisfying: it came at the expense of neighbours and rivals Mosman, and it was secured through the efforts of a local player who climbed through the grades at the club.  Actually, Mosman could claim Greenslade as a junior as well – he started out with the Whales before joining North Sydney as a Third Grader.  Last season he scored consistently in Seconds and Thirds, earning a First Grade debut and showing signs of promise with a polished 78 against Bankstown.  A tall, wristy left-hander, Greenslade knows North Sydney Oval well, having spent his winters there playing full-back for the Northern Suburbs Rugby club.  And he’s plainly good at absorbing pressure.  Chasing 320, North Sydney made the worst possible start when Elijah Eales bowled Brent Atherton first ball.  Dangerman Justin Avendano cracked Dean Crawford for three successive fours, but then fell lbw to Eales for only 23.  At 4-79, North Sydney was in serious trouble, but James Rew and Greenslade played maturely and positively to set up a successful chase.  Inevitably, the chase was finished off by Robbie Aitken (who is significantly older than Rew and Greenslade put together), who hit an unbeaten fifty, but it was Greenslade’s day.  He ended up on 118 not out, 96 of which came in boundaries (21 fours and two 6s).

The British are coming

Sydney’s annual influx of county professionals and young county aspirants has resumed after a two-year Covid break and, as is making up for the lost time, British players are swarming into Premier Cricket.  And there are some interesting faces in the mix.  Somerset’s left handed keeper-batsman, James Rew, made an unusual first-class debut when he turned out for a County Select XI against India before appearing for his own county.  Since then, he’s played for England in the Under-19 World Cup final, and scored a County Championship century for Somerset against Essex.  Rew made an immediate impact for North Sydney, hitting 91 to help the Bears chase down Mosman’s target of 320.  One of Rew’s Under-19 team-mates, Tom Prest of Hampshire, made a solid start to his stint with Easts, scoring 55 and picking up two handy wickets.  Kent’s Tawanda Muyeye made an excellent start to his time with Randwick-Petersham, hitting a classy half-century against Northern District.  Muyeye has a fascinating story: his family are refugees from Zimbabwe, and he’s in the process of qualifying for England.  It may take him a while his live down his old coach’s assessment that "he could be the best player in the world" but he can certainly bat.  And apparently, Blacktown has recruited Lancashire pace bowler Jack Blatherwick, whose name sounds as though he ought to be a minor character in a DH Lawrence novel.  Blatherwick, who started out with Nottinghamshire before moving to Lancashire, had a quiet 2022 after some highly promising moments in 2021.  At his best, he bowls with real pace, moving the ball away and generating uncomfortable bounce.  If he finds his rhythm, he could unsettle a few batsmen before returning home.

Trent Copeland still bowls

It feels as though he’s been around forever, and these days he seems to be on TV as often as he is on the field, but Trent Copeland is still only 36 (we checked) and he can still bowl.  He effectively settled the match between St George and Parramatta in his opening spell last weekend, when he straightened one back to Ryan Hackney (lbw for 2) and then removed Nick Bertus, caught by Rafael McMillan for 2.  From that point, Parramatta was never likely to overhaul St George’s 287, and Copeland finished things off with surgical precision, ending up with 5-47.  His virtues are unspectacular: an endlessly repeatable action, accuracy, control and subtle movement – but he remains a highly impressive craftsman.  And he was ably supported by the more explosive Peter Francis, who picked up 4-30.

Hayden’s back

Starting his season late due to injury, it hasn’t taken Hayden Kerr long to remind everyone why he’s now one of the most valuable white-ball players in the game.   Blacktown had set Sydney University a challenging target of 160 in their T20 match on Sunday, and that target then became 94 from 10 overs after a break for rain.  Ridiculously, University romped home with two and a half overs to spare.  Kerr began almost cautiously: after facing four balls from Jeremy Nunan and Asfar Riaz, he had scored only one, and by that stage University needed two runs a ball to win.  At which point, Kerr decided the outcome of the game in a few minutes.  From the next 13 balls he faced, from Riaz and Jacob Wood, he carved 55 runs, including seven sixes, reaching his fifty from only 17 balls.  Wood’s first over cost 26 runs, including three successive sixes; Kerr then smashed the next ball he faced, from Riaz, over the fence to make it four in a row, and added another two sixes later in the over.  When Kerr was leg-before to Smit Raval, for 56, early in the fifth over, the score was 59 and Nick Larkin had contributed two singles.  Larkin and Tim Cummins steered University home, and the Students sit on top of the Little Bash Thunder Conference with some absurdly astronomical net run rate.

Five Things We Learned from Round Two

Devlin Malone won the clash of the nerds

It was always going to be Devlin Malone’s day, after his very first delivery – full and flighted – collected Ethan Jamieson on the pad and won an lbw decision.  The pitch at Sydney University was slow, but Malone managed to turn the occasional ball a very long way, and he totally deceived Brandon McLean with a wrong ‘un that rattled into the off stump without the batsman offering a shot.  The Sydney University leg-spinner was the leading wicket-taker in First Grade last season, and his 6-42 against University of NSW gave him eight wickets from the first two days of 2022-23.  He was well backed up by Caelan Maladay, who bowled an excellent fourth stump line and worried every batsman.  University of NSW struggled to 163, and then Nick Larkin gave Sydney a rapid start, latching onto anything short and cracking 45 from only 53 deliveries.  Sydney University was superbly placed at 1 for 82, before rain washed out the whole of the second day.

La Nina was the Round Two MVP

Of the fifty games played across the five grades in Round Two, only three produced results.  St George grabbed six points in Seconds after stalwart Andrew Walsh (4-30) and leggie Joshua Moors skittled Bankstown for only 95.  Randwick-Petersham Fourths knocked off the Ghosts thanks to some excellent new ball bowling by Thomas Gibson (5-15) and senior citizen Nigel Singh.  And in Fifth Grade, Fairfield-Liverpool’s Zeel Nizama steered his side to victory over Sutherland with 61 not out.  No-one else managed a result: 26 matches never started at all.

Cricket has never figured out a way to deal with the inherent unfairness caused when one team gets a chance to play and another doesn’t.  It’s always shrugged off as “the luck of the game”, but perhaps that’s just an excuse for lazy thinking.  Offhand, we can’t think of any other sporting league that tolerates a situation that allows some teams to collect competition points while others don’t even make it onto the field.  Finding the answer is the hard part.  Reintroducing bonus points might help a little: at least that would give some reward to a team that hammers its opposition in the limited time it has to play.  Or, more radically, competition points might be awarded only in a round in which (say) half the teams in the grade manage to play for a certain minimum amount of time (80 overs, for example).  That might sound artificial and arbitrary, but can you imagine anyone tolerating a situation in which the Panthers reach the NRL finals because they got to play the Bulldogs on a day when the Roosters were “washed out” against the Tigers?  No sport accepts this as a sane outcome.  Except cricket.

Blacktown has a bit crazy man

It was a pity that rain brought a premature end to a fascinating battle of the northwest: Hawkesbury had its nose in front, as Blacktown needed 71 runs to win with only three wickets standing.  Still, one of those wickets belonged to Smit Raval, so anything might have happened.  Raval had already worked his way through the Hawkesbury innings, taking 7-66 with his leg-breaks, and he has a lot going on.  He started out as a pace bowler in Gujarat, but by the time he moved to Sydney on a tourist visa, injuries had forced him to take up slow bowling.  According to his social media profiles, he's a professional cricketer, ICC coach, “fitness coach for modelling agencies”, “philanthropist” and a ”bit crazy man I am”.  Unfortunately the rain prevented us from discovering whether he could add “match-winning lower order batsman” to what is, already, a formidable list of credentials.

That man’s following me…

Last season, in Round Two, the highest scorer in First grade was Sutherland’s Jarryd Biviano, with 172 against Hawkesbury – just ahead of Justin Avendano, who smashed 171 (with 11 sixes) for North Sydney against Gordon.  The highest scorer in First Grade in Round Two last week was… Jarryd Biviano (with 153 against Fairfield), just one run ahead of… Justin Avendano, who hit 152 for North Sydney against Sydney.  Sutherland and North Sydney both built impressive first-innings totals, without having time, before the rain, to force a win.

We don’t know what the “HQ” bit means, but it’s not “High Quality”

So, as far as we can tell, someone at Cricket Australia decided that the MyCricket platform provided large amounts of information more or less instantaneously, and decided it was time to put a stop to it.  This season, if you want to track down live Grade cricket scores online, you need to find something called “PlayHQ”.   Which has about 8% of the information that was on MyCricket, but makes up for that by giving it to you much, much more slowly.   In Round 1, we decided to be charitable, and put it down to teething trouble – which was fair enough because, you know, who could have predicted that Grade cricket would start on the last weekend in September?  But this last round it’s become obvious that PlayHQ just isn’t up to the job.  If you’re lucky, it uploads innings totals as the match unfolds, but that’s about it, unless you access it through the MyCricket app. It doesn’t update scorecards; it doesn’t integrate with live streaming platforms.  In a two-day game, it gives you innings details more slowly than you used to get them when they were printed in the Sunday papers, and at the time of writing, PlayHQ still insists that someone called ******* took 7-66 for Blacktown in the last round.  Putting Grade cricket on this system, in its current state, isn’t quite the same as hiding it under a rock, but it’s not far off.

Five Things We Learned from Round One

The Whales are good in the wet

First Grade premiers Mosman got their title defence away to a solid start with a win in a rain-shortened game at Howell Oval.  The difference between the two sides was probably Harry Dalton’s rapid 52 from 53 balls at the top of the innings which, backed up by Nathan Hinton’s more cautious 50, laid the platform for a competitive total of 223 from 45 overs.  Ryan Gibson and Tyran Liddiard gave Penrith’s reply a rapid start, adding 58, but after they fell in quick succession (to Dean Crawford and Matt Moran), the run rate was dragged back by Jayden Park.  The left arm spinner choked the middle order, allowing only 21 runs from his 8 overs while picking up three wickets.  Liam Doddrell made the finish interesting by blasting 45 from 33 balls, but Penrith’s chances evaporated when he was bowled by Jake Turner.  Even after just one round, Mosman looks every bit as efficient a team as it was last season.

The Students made an impressive start

For an hour or so, Campbelltown-Camden was well positioned in its game against Sydney University at Raby.  The Ghosts built a slow but steady start, profiting from some early-season fielding fumbles to reach 1 for 60.  From then on, the Students were clinical.  The spin attack of Dylan Hunter (3-26), Ryan McElduff (2-12) and Devlin Malone (2-28) strangled the innings, claiming 7 for 66 from the 26 overs they shared.  The fielding sharpened up, thanks to Jordan Gauci, who snared five catches.  Tim Cummins stumped Luke Webb to complete the rare achievement of 400 First Grade dismissals.  And then Nick Larkin (52), Hunter and Damien Mortimer (41 not out) made short work of the target of 129, walking off with a bonus point.  Sydney University enjoyed an excellent white ball season in 2021-22, and looks set, on this form, for another strong white ball campaign.

Saints’ second century is away to a good start

Two Saturdays back, St George celebrated the centenary of its admission to First Grade cricket with a match at Hurstville against the NSW Blues and a memorable dinner attended by hundreds of former players, including club royalty Brian Booth and Warren Saunders.  After all that, the actual cricket could have been an anticlimax, but St George launched its season with a thumping win over Hawkesbury.  Ever-reliable Nick Stapleton set up his team’s innings with a bright 67, and Luke Bartier finished it with a furious 64 not out from only 49 balls, but really everyone else was overshadowed by Blake Macdonald, who cleared the cycling track eight times on his way to 144 from only 104 balls.  It was Macdonald’s fifth century in First Grade, and took him past 2500 First Grade runs for St George at the very healthy average of 46.  Any chance Hawkesbury had of reaching its Duckworth-Lewis target before the rain came was then snuffed out by Trent Copeland, who produced a typically miserly spell of one for nine from seven overs. 

Evan Pitt had a breakthrough day

Opening bowler Evan Pitt has been part of the Parramatta club for ten years now, coming through the 2012-13 Green Shield side and generally hovering between Seconds and Thirds.  After playing a bit of indigenous representative cricket, he made his debut in First Grade late last season, when he bowled only four wicketless overs.  So Blacktown’s batsmen probably weren’t alarmed to see his name on the Parramatta teamsheet last Saturday.  With only Nick Bertus (56) looking in full control, Parramatta struggled to 8 for 190, not a lot of runs for an inexperienced attack to defend.   But Pitt sliced through the top order, removing Will Affleck, Tim Affleck and Puru Gaur in quick succession.  Blacktown crashed to 6 for 35 (before recovering to 80 all out) and Pitt collected 3-19 from his 8 overs.  Pitt has always been a popular clubman at Parramatta; now he has the chance to make a big contribution in the top grade.

Plus ca change…

Odds are that you’re not all that familiar with the 19th century French journalist Alphonse Karr.  If you’re an especially keen gardener, you might remember that there’s a species of bamboo named after him.  Almost certainly, though, you’ve heard the most famous words he ever wrote: the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Writing about this season is a bit like writing about last season.  Mosman has hit the ground running in First Grade.  It’s wet: another season is about to be dominated by La Nina.  Sydney University is looking good in short-form cricket.  Games at Raby are being called off.  North Sydney’s teams are full of people called Aitken.  Hurstville Oval is good for batting.  Dean Laing still turns out for Hawkesbury and Stephen Wark still turns out for St George, although rain on Saturday prevented them from turning out against each other.  Even the Cricket NSW Match Centre website spent the entire weekend defiantly stuck in 2021-22.

Next week, though, things could look a little different, as two-day cricket returns after who remembers how long.  For the first time in ages, First Graders will go looking for their whites, middle order batsmen will have more than eleven overs to bat, and teams will need to apply themselves in the field for more than three hours.  It’s going to be interesting.  Unless it rains, which it probably will.

Five Things We Learned from Round 17

Liam Robertson has called it a day

Having quietly announced that this will be his last season in the game, Liam Robertson probably expected the chance to make a farewell appearance for Sydney University, but Sydney’s incessant rain wiped out what would have been his last three matches, so it never quite happened.  As it turned out, his last game was the match at Campbelltown, his 233rd in First Grade, in which he collected his first five-wicket haul in the top grade.  Robertson was certainly a handy bowler – he took 150 First Grade wickets – but his bowling was possibly the least impressive aspect of his game.  He fielded brilliantly anywhere, and he hit the ball superbly, especially down the ground.  At his best, he was as good a white-ball cricketer as there was in the Sydney competition.  A one-club player, who rose from Green Shield to First Grade captain, he scored 8192 runs in all grades, 5386 in Firsts.  But maybe the most impressive statistic is this one: in all, he played 327 games for University and no fewer than 60 of them were finals.  The teams he played in, won.  He’ll be missed.

Odd things happen in the final round

So, your Seconds are in the running for the finals, Firsts are not, and you lose a few players from your top side.  What do you do?  Well, obviously, you ask three players from Third Grade to make their debuts in Firsts.  That’s what Easts did, anyway, and the strange thing is that it worked, up to a point.

Easts squeaked home in Firsts, largely because of an unbroken fourth-wicket stand between Angus Robson and Marcus Atallah, who took 195 runs from the last 162 balls of the innings.  After a slowish start to the season, Robson has been excellent towards the end: this was his third hundred in his last six innings.  Atallah cracked 102 not out from 86 balls, bringing up his first hundred in First Grade and clearing the fence six times in the process.  Sutherland made a good fist of the chase, and perhaps looked to be on top when Jarryd Biviano and James Arnold took the score to 2 for 222.  But Easts held on: a six from the final ball would have won the game, but Will Straker could only manage a single.  The debutants did nothing wrong, either: Chris Thompsett (who has, in fairness, played a couple of T20 games already) picked up three vital wickets, Max Cotter held a couple of catches behind the stumps, and Ollie Maxwell… well, Ollie Maxwell still hasn’t batted in Firsts, but he did help run out Andrew Deitz, so there’s that.

Not everything worked out for Easts, though.  They made a great start in Seconds, reaching 125 without loss in 28 overs before rain intervened, Harry Byrnes-Howe leading the way with 81 not out.  An adjusted target left Sutherland needing 166 from 28 overs.  Another Straker – Tom – was on strike for the last ball, needing only a single to win, but Will Lawrance had him caught so the game ended in a tie.  As it turns out, even if Easts had won, Sydney University did too, so the extra three points wouldn’t have lifted them into the finals anyway.

Ryan Felsch remembers how to tee off

For a player so well-suited to the white ball game, Sydney’s Ryan Felsch has had a strangely muted season, not reaching fifty since the first round of the competition.  But he put that right on Saturday, pulverising University of NSW’s finals hopes by pounding 124 from only 87 deliveries.  He actually batted even faster than that suggests, since he managed only a single from the first ten balls he faced.  Then he punched Declan White through cover for four, and he was away.  In the next over, he casually launched Tom Scoble over wide long-on for six, and he proceeded to add another ten sixes to his tally.  When Felsch is in form, his sixes don’t just clear the boundary, but clear it by miles, as if somehow it might be worth eight if the ball travels a bit further.  Sydney’s total of 281 looked impregnable when the Bees crashed to 6 for 67, but for a moment it looked as though University of NSW might have one more miracle finish left: Ethan Jamieson scored a classy, rapid hundred, and Suthangan Thanabalasingam contributed a fighting 66.  Just when Sydney was feeling nervous, Thanabalasingam and Hayden McLean both fell in the same over to – of course – Ryan Felsch.  Sydney and the Bees were effectively playing off for sixth place, and it’s Sydney who advance to the finals next weekend.

Everything old is new again

There was a finals playoff at St Pauls Oval on Saturday, when the winner of the game between Sydney University and Gordon was certain to advance to the post-season, while the losers could put their boots away for the next six months.   On a pitch that was never easy for batting, Gordon struggled against a tidy University attack, battling to 113 from 38.5 overs.  It didn’t look enough, but when the Students crashed to Tom Stacy, losing 5 for 20 (and then 6 for 33), Gordon was firmly on top.  The Stags’ hopes were dashed by Noah Bloch (from Zimbabwe via Perth), who rode his luck and cracked 47 not out so quickly that University not only won the game, but also took an improbable bonus point.

So that was quite a game, but that’s not the interesting bit.  Because, back in 1994-95, Sydney University faced Gordon at home in the last round before the finals, on a Saturday when there had been no play the previous week because of heavy rain.  On a pitch that was never easy for batting, Gordon struggled against a tidy University attack, battling to make 124.  It didn’t look enough, but when the Students crashed to 5 for 19, Gordon was firmly on top.  Yet University recovered to win the game.  Sydney University advanced to the finals, Gordon didn’t. 

Hang around this game long enough, and whatever you saw once, you’ll probably see again.  Incidentally, University went on to win the competition in 1994-95, so if you believe in omens, there’s one for you.

Gladys is a Shire girl at heart

It was always likely that the season’s final Gladys Berejiklian Award for the Sudden and Unexpected Collapse of the Round would be handed out in a game involving Sutherland – no team has tried so hard, and so consistently, to earn this particular accolade as the Sharks’ Thirds.  And they put in another big effort on Saturday, slumping from the respectability of 2 for 44 to be dismissed for only 90.  And yet, and yet.  Easts’ Fourths, against Sutherland, did even better.  Meaning worse.  Having ground out a decent start at 4 for 105, Easts fell in a heap to Sam Fitzgibbon (3-13) and Luke Ritchie (3-14), losing their last six wickets for only ten runs.  It turns out that Gladys is a Shire girl at heart.

Five Things We Learned from whatever the hell that Round would have been

That game back in round three was actually pretty important

Now that the rain looks like easing and there could be some finals played, teams through the grades are furiously performing calculations to see what needs to be done to play on into the post-season.  Somewhere in all this they might reflect that the biggest game of the season was actually that one back in round three, which they didn’t win but maybe should have, and didn’t seem like that big a deal at the time, but now makes the difference between a comfortable finals spot and a Saturday spent anxiously checking MyCricket scores from three other grounds.

Anyway, let’s be crazy wild optimists and pretend that games will go ahead this weekend.  Northern District (85 points), Mosman (78), Randwick-Petersham (75), Manly (69) and St George (59) will be progressing to the finals no matter what happens.  The Rangers will be minor premiers unless they lose heavily to St George and Mosman manages a massive bonus-point win over Campbelltown-Camden.  In that event both sides would have 85 points and Mosman might, in theory, emerge with the better quotient.  Sydney, on 52, has its destiny in its own hands: if it beats University of NSW (46), it stays in sixth spot.  But then it gets messy.  Wests (51) can break into the six if they beat Bankstown and Sydney loses to University of NSW – or, just possibly, if Sydney beats University of NSW but Wests pick up a bonus point and improve their quotient just enough to edge ahead of Sydney.  If University of NSW beats Sydney, both sides will be on 52, and the Bees will have the better quotient, so they would take sixth spot unless Wests win.   And then there’s Sydney University.  There’s a theoretically possible universe in which UNSW beats Sydney but without improving its quotient, while Sydney University monsters Gordon enough to win a bonus point and lift its quotient from 1.1021 to above 1.2, which is what would be needed.  For that to happen, not only would the Students need to win by some colossal margin, they’d also need University of NSW to win by a tiny margin, and Bankstown to beat Wests.  Whatever the odds of this are, it would be worth putting a dollar on it – it won’t happen, but if it did…

Second Grade is… complicated

One thing we know about Second Grade is that Mosman will be minor premiers.  They’re sitting on 85 points, so they could forget to turn up this week and all go on holidays for the first week of finals and still get through to the semis.  Then Sutherland (60), Manly (59) and Gordon (59) will all be in the finals, though the pecking order is subject to all manner of permutations (Sutherland, second with a huge quotient of 1.7930, sit in second but as a mathematical possibility could be sixth).  Northern District (54) can seal its place by beating St George (48) and Sydney University will stay in the six if they beat Gordon.

After that, though, it gets complicated.  Easts, on 52, will play Sutherland.  If they win that one, they could go past either or both of Northern District or Sydney University if they lose.  Then there are Bankstown and St George, both lurking on 48 and looking to pass any of the three teams ahead of them that stumbles.

Eight doesn’t go into two

It’s unlikely that we’ll know the makeup of the Third Grade finals until very late on Saturday afternoon.  The top four are secure – Northern District (73) will be minor premiers, followed by Bankstown (61), Sydney University (56) and University of NSW (53).  But no fewer than eight teams could hypothetically take the remaining two spots.  Parramatta (47) can clinch a place by beating 15th-placed Penrith, who have won only four times this season.  And Easts (43) will expect to overcome 14th-placed Sutherland in a highly anticipated clash of the two sides in Sydney whose batting has collapsed most often this season.  But if either Parramatta or Easts slip up, Randwick-Petersham (42) can go past them by beating North Sydney.  And then there are Manly (41), Mosman (41), North Sydney (40), Gordon (38) and even Wests (37), who could all squeak into sixth spot with a big win and a vast number of favourable results at other grounds.

There’s a play-off in Fourth Grade

There’s a virtual finals play-off in Fourth Grade, where fifth-placed Sydney University (48) plays seventh-placed Gordon (46) with the winner all but assured of a place in the top six.  University captain Ash Cowan will be looking to maintain a streak of playing finals cricket in every season since 1988 (although it’s possible we made that bit up).

Parramatta (60) can clinch the minor premiership by beating Penrith, but if they stumble, Northern District (58) can pass them by beating St George (52), who can’t be displaced from the six whatever happens.  Manly (54) will be there too, and University of NSW (47) needs to beat Sydney to be sure of keeping its place.  Then there’s a string of increasingly insane permutations that would allow Sutherland (45), Wests (42), Easts (41) and Mosman (40) to leap into the six from deep in the pack, but our brains hurt too much to figure all that out.

Easts are on track in Fifths

In Fifths, Easts (65) are minor premiers if they beat Sutherland, but if they don’t, they can be passed if University of NSW (60) beat Sydney (42).  Sydney needs the win, because then if Northern District (45) loses to St George, Sydney can jump into the top six.  Gordon (52), North Sydney (49) and Manly (48) look fairly safe, although both Hawkesbury (44) and Randwick-Petersham (41) both have what CNN correspondents like to call a “path to victory”.

Five Things We Learned from Round 14

This feels like it could be a record

Campbelltown-Camden made a promising start against Sydney University on Saturday, getting away to 1 for 86 at around four an over.  Then Liam Robertson intervened.  Robertson has always been a very handy one-day bowler, though knee trouble, and his reluctance to use himself when he was captain, have meant that he’s bowled less than you might expect.  He ambles to the crease and has no great pace, but he’s extremely effective in the short game because he bowls intelligently and varies his pace so that it’s very hard for batsmen to set themselves for a big hit.  He beat Adam Whatley completely with a ball that jagged back off the seam; trapped Jackson Isakka in front with a fuller ball that also moved in; induced Will Salzmann to slice a drive to Nick Larkin at cover; picked up Akshat Mishra from a swipe to long-on; and bowled Blake Smith with a full, straight one.  University lost early wickets, before Larkin (72) and Tim Cummins (59) produced an assured stand of 119, and Damien Mortimer and Ryan Danne finished things off.  But Robertson’s 5-42 was the decisive performance.  It was the first time in First Grade that he’d taken five in an innings, raising the question of whether anyone else has ever waited 233 matches to do it.  Jungle Robson maybe?  Anyway, it feels like a record.

Wests are contenders

There was minimal change in the First Grade table this week, and Wests remain a point away from the top six after outplaying Mosman (who lose their share of first place as a result).  It was an impressive effort, driven by an opening stand of 216 between Nick Cutler (104) and Josh Clarke (134 not out).  Mosman got close, reaching 2 for 143 with Lachlan Hearne in fine touch – but he inside-edged a drive at Liam Ford onto his stumps when he made made 57.  Ford grabbed two wickets in the over, and though Matt Moran and Elijah Eales fought hard, Wests held on to win by nine runs.  The much-improved Jack Bermingham snared four wickets, and Clarke (player of the match by some distance) was the meanest bowler on display, taking 1-22 from his nine overs.  Wests now face the challenge of the in-form Randwick-Petersham side this week – assuming that the rain holds off.

Oh, McLean, you’ve done it again

You might remember that, a few weeks ago, Hayden McLean found himself facing his first ball with University of NSW needing six to beat Mosman in the Little Bash semi-final, and whacking that ball out of the ground.  That kind of thing happens once in a career, if you’re lucky.  So no-one had any great hopes last Saturday when the Bees collapsed to 8 for 156 against Bankstown, still needing 91 to win from 81 deliveries.  McLean and Suthangan Thanabalasingam chipped away at the target until 23 runs were needed from the last two overs.  Brad Simpson seemed to have settled the issue by bowling an exceptional 49th over, allowing only four singles, so 19 were needed from the last.  Dayne Heward – who had bowled well for his two wickets – was entrusted with the final over.  McLean whacked the first ball through square leg for 4, then missed a slower ball but scrambled a leg-bye.  The third ball was on a length on off stump, but Thanabalasingam carved it over cow corner for six.  Suddenly, for the first time, the odds favoured the Bees, with eight needed from three balls.  Thanabalasingam scrambled two from the fourth ball, and another two from the fifth (although a better throw would have run out Thanabalasingam by yards), so four were needed from the last delivery.  This one was fuller, but Thanabalasingam set himself deep in the crease and smacked it high over mid-wicket for six.  The win keeps the Bees in the hunt for the finals, and gives McLean a second once-in-a-career moment in the space of a few weeks.

The baby sharks have teeth

High point of a fairly forgettable season for Sutherland was the club’s Poidevin-Gray Shield success on Sunday.  On paper, both Sutherland and Penrith looked stronger with the ball than the bat, and Penrith was well in the contest when Sutherland slumped to 6 for 121.  But Andrew Ritchie, who led his side impressively throughout its campaign, struck 48 from 48, including three 6s, and Sutherland ended up with a very presentable 9 for 214.  Penrith started brightly, and was well in the contest at 1 for 45, but Third Grader Zac Philipson made a crucial breakthrough, and the rest of the innings folded to Will Straker and Justin Green.  Straker, outstanding with the ball in PGs this year, finished with 5-25, and Green snaffled 3-10.  They had great support from keeper Lachlan Ball, who held six catches – following his six catches in the semi-final, a double which we’re sure (but again can’t prove) is some kind of record.

Gladys played 4s this week

The Gladys Berejiklian Sudden and Unexpected Collapse of the Week Award goes to… someone in Fourth Grade.  Who, we’re not sure.  Bankstown, looking solid at 3-82, lost seven for 41 to be all out for 123.  Penrith, last week’s winner, looked OK at 2 for 44 before eight wickets crashed for 22, Manly’s Adam Parkinson grabbing 4-0 in 13 balls.  Against Sydney, Easts lost 5 for 25 before a partnership of 38 steadied the innings – only for Kshitij Cyril (a commentator’s nightmare) to wreck the innings again with a hat-trick.  But maybe it was Northern District.  Chasing Sutherland’s 178, the Rangers crashed from 2 for 45 to 7 for 53 and then 8 for 63.  At which point, Peter Murray and Jaden Sequiera (who hadn’t scored more than 3 since November) added 114 for the ninth wicket to steer their side to the points.  You choose.

Five Things We Learned from Round 13

Finals are coming

Under the new, revised draw, there are now four rounds remaining, one of which is a two-day game in First Grade.  Three bonus points and an outright would give a team 31 points, so as a matter of mathematical possibility, just about every side could make the finals.    Probability, unfortunately, is a little harsher, and suggests that only five sides outside the top six have much of a chance.  The top four is all but certain to be some combination of Northern District (76), Mosman (76), Randwick-Petersham (67) and Manly (61).  Four wins would give 11th placed Easts 60 points (assuming no bonus points), which would make it possible for them to overhaul St George (currently on 50) or Sydney (44) if either side implodes  But St George has a reasonably easy run home (but for a match against Northern District in the last round).  Sydney, whose form has been inconsistent and who has a harder draw, will do well to hold on to sixth spot. 

The Students are still in the hunt

First Grade cricket returned to two-day games last weekend – well, in most places, anyway.  Several games lost day one to rain, and only a handful of balls were bowled at Bankstown Oval, where the home side faced Sydney University in a battle to see who could keep their finals hopes alive for the season.  University’s batting has been fragile in recent weeks, and didn’t seem to have improved at the start of day two when the first three wickets fell for 30 runs in the face of some hostile bowling by Liam Marshall.  The innings was rebuilt by Charles Litchfield, who batted positively and maturely to post his first half-century in the top grade, in company with Damien Mortimer.  Mortimer has looked in good touch for the last few weeks and, relishing the chance to bat for a longer time, he compiled a very polished 86.  Litchfield and Mortimer laid the platform for captain Tim Cummins, who batted freely to reach his fourth First Grade hundred from only 120 deliveries, whacking six 6s in the process.  Cummins timed his declaration nicely, asking Bankstown to chase 292 in 67 overs on an increasingly easy pitch.  For about half an hour (while University tested a theory that Nick Carruthers was vulnerable to short balls outside off stump), Bankstown was ahead of the required rate; but Ryan McElduff (a vastly improved off-spinner this season) then removed Carruthers and Zeeshan Ahmed with successive deliveries.  The Bankstown innings after that was oddly schizophrenic – sometimes it looked as though they were chasing, but then someone would sedately block out a maiden.  Daniel Solway anchored the innings, and played very well, but seldom tried to take on the attack.  With twenty overs remaining, Bankstown needed 120 runs with five wickets in hand, but Declan Malone removed Tyler Van Luin and Dugald Holloway then settled the issue by grabbing three wickets in a single, remarkable over.  Daniel Burns dug in with Solway, and came close to saving the game, but with 19 balls left in the day he tickled a catch to Tim Cummins (his fifth, completing a rather tidy day’s work).  The Students are now in the territory where they need to win most of their games and hope that other results go their way, but they’re still alive.

Cam Hawkins is in good nick

Camden Hawkins has had a slightly unusual journey in the game.  Born in New Zealand, he attracted attention as a student at Trinity Grammar, and played Green Shield for Sydney University.  He then shifted to Mosman, where he was quickly promoted to First Grade, and then decided to return to New Zealand in an attempt to break into first-class cricket.   He had some success, passing fifty five times in 14 first-class games for Otago, with a top score of 90, but returned to Sydney this season and joined up with Randwick-Petersham.  It’s taken a while for him to readjust, but in the last two weeks he has played vital innings in low-scoring games.  First there was his 52 in the Little Bash grand final; then, last weekend, he held together RP’s innings with a patient, unbeaten 72 against University of NSW.  The Bees managed only 133 against a highly efficient seam attack led by Adam Semple and Daya Singh, but looked to be in the contest when Randwick-Petersham lost five wickets quickly after a solid opening stand.  Hawkins ensured that there would be no further alarms, batting for more than three hours to guide RPs to the points.  Perhaps the most impressive thing about it was his ability to follow a 41-ball fifty in a T20 game with a patient, sheet-anchor role in the two-day game.

Sam Skelly had a day out

Perhaps the most critical moment of the match between Easts and Fairfield-Liverpool came mid-way through the first day, when Sam Robson fell for an excellent 73.  As we’ve already established, Easts have never won a match in which both Robson brothers have scored hundreds, and Angus was already well on the way to a dominant 146 not out.  For the good of the side, there was only one thing Sam could do.  Easts declared overnight on 3 for 335, Will Simpson having played nicely for 80 not out, and then Sam Skelly took control.  He had Awad Naqvi caught behind from a delivery the batsman appeared to be trying to leave; Jaydyn Simmons also seemed to be trying to leave a ball with tennis-ball bounce that looped from the face of the bat to Angus Robson at slip. Skelly then trapped Arjun Nair on the crease, had Luke Ohrynowsky caught behind second ball, bowled Yuvraj Singh and induced Jarrad Burke to slice a catch to point.  At that stage, Skelly had the first six wickets to fall, but Will Simpson spoiled his party by grabbing the next wicket, and Skelly ended up with 6-37.  He bowled an impressive line, hit the seam, and found life in the pitch that had eluded Fairfield’s attack.  Routed for only 68, Fairfield did well to stave off an outright defeat.  Incidentally, has anyone else noticed how Easts’ keeper Max Glen stands upright fidgeting with his gloves until the instant before the bowler releases the ball?  Once you’ve seen it, it’s incredibly distracting.

Gladys went west this week

As always, Round 13 featured some high-quality collapsing around the grades, with the Fairfield-Liverpool and Gordon sides, in particular, displaying their ability to lose wickets in big, ugly clumps.  But no-one did it quite as well as Penrith’s Fourth Grade.  Batting first at Cook Park, Matthew Halse and Leo Astill got their side away to a rattling start, punching past fifty inside the first ten overs.  Mosman’s bowlers were rattled and lost their line, bowling one wide after another.  At 1 for 77, Penrith looked to be in complete control.  But experienced spinner Nitin Gandhi bowled Astill and then utterly strangled the middle order.  Penrith’s last nine wickets crashed for only 30, with Gandhi snaring 6-21.  After the openers, no batsman passed seven.  This was Classic Gladys: a position of absolute strength, followed by unmitigated disaster.

Five Things We Learned from Round 12

RPs held their nerve in the Little Bash

So, the Harry Solomons Little Bash still remains the biggest competition Sydney University has never won, after the Students were outplayed in the fifth – fifth! – T20 grand final they’ve reached but lost.  University looked a good bet at the half-way mark, after Randwick-Petersham tumbled from 3 for 90 to be all out for 114.  Although Hayden Kerr struck a vital early blow by removing Jason Sangha, Cam Hawkins – a former University Green Shield player – was good value for his 52 from 41 deliveries.  But just when Randwick-Petersham looked likely to push on to a serious total, Hawkins feathered a catch to Tim Cummins, and the innings fell in a heap.  Five wickets fell for five runs inside a couple of overs, as Ryan McElduff (4-13) cut through the middle order.  Devlin Malone finished things off with 3-13 and the Students approached the chase with plenty of confidence.  But RPs had taken a good look at the pitch, and worked out that it offered the bowlers a bit of sideways movement and some uneven bounce.  They realised that the way to succeed was to abandon their usual T20 methods (short ball/yorker/change-up) and bowl a two-day line and length instead.  What followed was a superbly disciplined effort with the ball, led by the ageless Adam Semple (3-11) and Australian T20 representative Darren Sams (2-8).  Nothing was given away: RP’s bowlers didn’t concede a single wide or no-ball.  Hayden Kerr gave his side some hope with a determined innings, launching two massive sixes down the ground.  But when he holed out for 37, the cause was lost.  Randwick-Petersham claimed its fourth T20 championship, and coach Mick Haire collected his third in five years (two of them with Sydney).  The game, incidentally, was very well supported by followers of both clubs.

Dale McKay still plays

It’s been a fairly forgettable season for Hawkesbury in First Grade, with only two games won in the first 11 rounds, but they’ll take encouragement from Saturday’s win over local rivals Penrith.  The Panthers batted first and posted a pretty competitive 7 for 269, then removed both the Hawks’ openers with 71 runs on the board.  At which point, Dale McKay took over.  He’d missed a couple of games due to the birth of his daughter, but he was quickly into his stride, brutalising the spin of Adam Burton and Adam Bayliss, and driving sweetly against the seamers.  He found a willing partner in Connor Mizzi, and together they added 142 in 21 overs.  McKay reached his hundred from only 83 balls, and though Ryan Fletcher removed him soon afterwards, Hawkesbury got home with almost two overs to spare.  McKay is a relative rarity in modern Grade cricket, a one-club player for 13 years, and his innings took him within a couple of boundaries of 7000 First Grade runs.

Brent Atherton likes batting at North Sydney

A disciplined bowling effort from North Sydney left the Bears with a modest target to chase against University of NSW on Saturday, which meant that Brent Atherton started off a little less like a runaway train than usual.  Atherton, who began his Grade career with St George around ten seasons back, also turned out for Hawkesbury and Penrith before joining North Sydney last season.  This year, he’s shown all the benefits of having North Sydney as his home ground: he’s just short of 500 runs for the season, with an average above fifty and a very healthy strike rate.  He needed to get his head down on Saturday, because the Bears slumped to 2 for 17 when Chris Tremain had Justin Avendano caught behind from an airy drive.  The left-hander loves to cut and pull, and he knows exactly where the short boundaries are.  His fourth-wicket stand of 107 with Jack James pretty much settled the outcome, at which point the only question was whether Atherton could reach his first top-grade hundred.  On 84, though, he tried to scramble a quick single to mid on and failed to beat an underarm throw from Brandon McLean.  He actually hung round for a moment or two to question the decision, but it stood, so that first ton will have to wait.

Both the Ryans won

Manly took the points from Parramatta on Saturday, falling over the line when Jake Carden, needing one to tie, whacked the last ball of the day just over the hands of Ben Abbott at short cover.  But Ryan Hackney and Ryan Hadley were both winners, since after the game they were named in the squad for the Sheffield Shield match starting today in Brisbane.  In each case, it’s a reward for several years of consistent performances: Hadley (who actually went wicketless on Saturday) has taken 122 First Grade wickets in his four-year career with Manly, while Hackney (who enjoyed several good seasons with Penrith) has compiled over 700 runs at an average above fifty for Parramatta this season.

Remember, Gladys used to be Gordon’s local member

It’s tempting to give the Gladys Berejiklian Sudden and Unexpected Collapse of the Week Award to Randwick-Petersham, who lost five for five (and 7 for 24) in the Little Bash grand final.  But they won, and we didn’t, and so that would feel like sour grapes.  You can’t ever keep Sutherland’s Thirds out of this: they collapsed yet again, losing 4 for 8 in the middle order after reaching two for 40 against Blacktown.  But they won too, after Blacktown matched their collapse by losing 7 for 27 following an opening stand of 32. 

So instead, the winner this week is Gordon (whose home ground is, of course, in Ms Berejiklian’s old electorate).  The Stags’ bowlers performed well to limit Sydney to 204 at Drummoyne, but their chase was a debacle.  Wearing what looked like one of Rafael Nadal’s discarded headbands, Left-armer Alex Glendenning got the ball to bend around, and he had Michael Fletcher caught behind with his second delivery.  Dylan Hunter, caught on the crease, edged his third ball to Beau McClintock and Gordon was 2 for 0.  When Glendenning dipped a ball in to Jamie Bekis’ front pad, Gordon was 4 for 9 and he had 3-2; that became 4-2 in the ninth over when he trapped Taj Brar in front.  By then, Gordon was 5 for 13, and there was no way back.

Five Things We Learned from Round 11

Scott Rodgie’s form is ridiculous

There were two moments on Saturday when North Sydney looked to be in the contest with Northern District.  First, they reduced the visitors to 2 for 11, when Matt Alexander opened his second over with two wides followed by two wickets.  Then, chasing 282, the Bears climbed to 1 for 196.  Each time, it was Scott Rodgie who shattered their hopes, first with a massive 147 from 157 balls, then with a spell of 4 for 6, in which he was twice on a hat-trick.  Apart from the T20 games, Rodgie this season has 604 runs at 86 and 25 wickets at 11.  The engraver can start work on the O’Reilly Medal any time now.

Imagine if they could bowl straight

Weird match of the day was at Raby, where Campbelltown-Camden shot out Sutherland for 128, collapsed to 4 for 35, then fell over the line to win by three wickets.  That’s not the weird bit – which is that although only 257 runs were scored in the day, no fewer than 40 of them (or just over 15%) were wides.  Campbelltown-Camden contributed 25 of them; Luke Webb, whose left arm swing did most of the damage, sent down 10 wides while taking 4-27.  Top-scorer with the bat was Chris Williams, who managed only 23.   When Campbelltown batted, Tom Pinson ripped the top off the innings, and grabbed 4-41, but sent down 14 wides of his own.  Pinson’s chaotic first over included two wickets (Adam Whatley looping a leading edge to point, Jackson Isakka edging behind), a boundary and five wides.  In the end, Blake Smith ushered Campbelltown to its second win of the season.  But imagine if they could bowl straight.

The Conference finals were epic

It’s hard to recall a season in which both Conference finals in the Harry Solomons Little Bash were so compelling to watch.  University of NSW looked well placed to take the Sixers flag after posting a competitive 5 for 167 and reducing Randwick-Petersham to 3 for 11.  Thomas Scoble hit five 6s in his 82 not out, while Jack Attenborough needed only 38 balls for his 60.  Then Declan White removed Jason Sangha and Chris Tremain dismissed Daniel Sams to leave Randwick-Petersham in all kinds of bother.  No-one counted on Adam Semple launching eight 6s in a furious 100 not out from only 54 deliveries.  With two overs remaining, Randwick-Petersham still needed 20 to win, but the left-handed Semple sliced Chris Tremain past point for four, smacked a pull to the fence, and then smeared another short ball over midwicket for 6.  That last over was never needed.

Parramatta seemed in control at the halfway mark at Sydney University, after Ryan Hackney’s polished 88 and a furious cameo from Luke Dempsey, whose 41 from 21 included five 6s, all of which cleared the fence by a considerable distance.  6 for 191 was a pretty decent total, but Nick Larkin and Charlie Dummer hammered the bowling all around the ground, carving 61 runs from the first five overs of University’s innings.  Dummer lashed three successive sixes from off-spinner Hayden Goulstone, the last of which was caught by one of the Uni Army sitting high in the Grandstand.  Unsurprisingly, the chase was finished off by Liam Robertson, who has now scored more Premier Cricket T20 runs than anyone except Scott Rodgie, Dan Smith and Adam Crosthwaite.  Robertson’s unbeaten 73 came from 44 balls, and although he hit no fours, he cleared the fence six times (including two more massive blows against Goulstone).  Damien Mortimer made a vital contribution, Ryan McElduff bustled at the end, and University squeaked home with a ball to spare.  Let’s hope that the rain (which is forecast for the next ten days) doesn’t spoil what ought to be an exceptional grand final.

Saints march in to another Green Shield

The Green Shield season ended in suitable style with a gripping final at Hurstville Oval.  Northern District posted a competitive 8 for 205, mostly through Tom Bermingham (57) and Sam Weir (78), who added 71 for the second wicket.  After which, the match appeared likely to turn on whether and when NDs could dismiss Sam Konstas, whose form this season has been phenomenal.  Konstas duly crunched his way to 54 from 48 balls, and St George was 71 without loss after 14 overs.  But Konstas then dabbed at a ball from left arm spinner Peter Murray, and edged it only as far as the keeper, Jordan Netto.  Murray tightened the screws – he finished with 4-37 – and the contest was alive.  But Tom Forrester anchored the innings with a patient 59, and Jackson Ingram played a vital, bustling innings towards the end.  St George prevailed with three wickets and 16 balls to spare.

Konstas, though.  He ended the Green Shield with a record 795 runs at an average of 113.  He followed up with a hundred in Second Grade on Saturday, and 51 in the Poidevin-Gray semi-final on Sunday.  In all grades so far this season, he has 1139 runs at 75.  This is so insanely impressive that it feels slightly mean to point out that his bowling hasn’t flourished quite so much (and, remember, he took 5-47 in a Third Grade semi-final last year).  He finished up the Green Shield season with only one wicket, conceding 177 runs.  And so, we think, he made history by becoming the first player in Green Shield ever to average over 100 with both bat and ball in the same season.

Mo, meet Gladys

Here’s a paradox for you: the least coveted award in Grade cricket is the most hotly contested.   There were contenders all over Sydney for the Gladys Berejiklian Sudden and Unexpected Collapse of the Week Award.  England, by the way, is still not eligible, although by losing their last four wickets in as many balls in the final T20 match against the West Indies, they continue to show the amateurs how it’s done.  Sutherland Thirds, obviously, put in a persuasive bid, this time at the top of the order, beginning a chase against Campbelltown-Camden by losing 5 for 24.  In First Grade, North Sydney reached 1 for 196 against Northern District before losing five for 14.  But it’s hard to go past Penrith Firsts.  They began their match against Wests by losing 3 for 13, with returning Pakistani fast bowler Muhammad Irfan junior doing most of the damage.  While Irfan rested, Adam Bayliss and the promising Jordan Watson assembled a partnership of 140 – and then six wickets crashed for only 13 runs, completing a spectacular Split Gladys. Irfan marked his return to Wests by taking 5 for 15 from his ten overs.  Irfan, incidentally, answers to “Mo”, which could cause all manner of confusion at the next Wests players reunion.

Five Things We Learned from Round 10

Northern District dropped a game

It’s very rare for a First Grade side to make it through a season unbeaten, and it’s not going to happen this year, after Northern District was upset by Fairfield-Liverpool at Rosedale on Saturday.  Fairfield’s win was set up by a second century for the season from Jaydyn Symmyns (sorry, Simmons), who opened the innings and batted through to the final over until he was run out by Ross Pawson’s direct hit.  Fairfield started slowly after losing two early wickets and it wasn’t until the 17th over that Simmons began to accelerate, clipping Scott Rodgie for a leg side six.  He cleared the boundary again later in his innings, picking up a short ball from Pawson and cracking it over midwicket.  But, although Luke Ohrynowsky got after Toby Gray, Northern District managed to hold the total to 4 for 244.  That looked an achievable target, especially once Scott Rodgie, David Lowery and Daniel Anderson had carried the Rangers to 3 for 187.  But miserly bowling by Jarrad Burke left the Rangers needing 56 from the last six overs, and although there were plenty of wickets in hand, the asking rate was too steep.  Harmon Sandhu was rewarded for his accuracy with some cheap wickets as the batsmen became increasingly reckless, and a final-ball run out gave Fairfield a memorable win by 14 runs.

If both Robsons score hundreds, Easts are in trouble

Weird stat of the week: Easts never win when Angus Robson and Sam Robson hit centuries in the same innings.  Now, you may argue that the sample size is on the small side (it’s happened twice) but, come on, numbers don’t lie.  Back in 2019-20, Angus hit 134 and Sam 113 against Northern District, and the game was drawn when the second day was washed out.  And last weekend, Angus hit 128 and Sam 103 against Randwick-Petersham, a game that Easts lost by 31 runs.

The Robsons joined forces after both of Easts’ openers had been dismissed first ball, and they proceeded to add 194 in 36.2 overs.  Sam’s dismissal, bowled by Jason Ralston, left Easts still needing 100 runs in 12.3 overs, but Ralston and Riley Ayre bowled some tidy overs before Daya Singh and Adam Semple closed out the innings with some well-controlled death overs.  In the end, the difference between the sides was the 25 not out from RP’s Basit Ali, who faced only five balls from Will Simpson and Sam Skelly but hit four of them for six, with a series of surprisingly casual bottom-handed swats over cow corner.

Easts play Manly this weekend.  It’s just a thought, but Manly might consider bowling absolute dross to the Robsons for as long as possible.  It’s practically foolproof.

Daniel Rixon’s second career is going nicely, thank you

You may remember Daniel Rixon as Sutherland’s long-serving First Grade wicket-keeper: his career behind the stumps for the Sharks extended to 274 matches (a club record), in which he completed 359 catches and 82 stumpings.  His batting, while useful, was never exceptional – his highest score in the top grade was 98, and his average was a touch above 20.  After taking up an appointment as club coach, he stepped down to Second Grade, where he reinvented himself as a batsman who bowls medium pace.  It seems to be working: he now has 72 wickets to his name, his batting average in Seconds stands at 49.41, and he’s hammered hundreds in his last two innings.  At Chatswood Oval in Round 9, he plundered 157 from only 120 balls, clearing the fence six times, hitting 18 fours, and sharing an opening stand of 180 with James Arnold.  Last Saturday, Sutherland found itself chasing 216 to beat St George, and Rixon and Arnold knocked off the runs without losing a wicket and with almost six overs to spare.  Arnold made his second 79 in succession, while Rixon was relatively sedate, soaking up 142 balls for his 126 not out.  So far this season, Rixon averages 90 with the bat in Seconds, and 18 with the ball, and his form is the main reason why the Sharks are sitting in third place.

The Conference finalists have been decided

As the Big Bash (finally) draws to a close, so the Harry Solomons Little Bash approaches its climax.  The Conference finals are being played today: Sydney University meets Parramatta, while University of NSW takes on Randwick-Petersham.  Sydney University fielded a strange-looking team in its semi-final against Blacktown: injuries and Covid reduced the Students to an attack of three spinners, one regular opening bowler and the (these days) occasional medium-pace of Liam Robertson.  In fact, after Ryan McElduff made the early breakthroughs, it was Robertson who did most damage, claiming 3-26.  That included the wicket of Matt Day to a ludicrous catch in the deep by Nick Larkin, who sprinted in past the ball before throwing himself into reverse and clinging on to the ball with one hand while flying backwards.  Devlin Malone was tight, Caelan Maladay bowled it out efficiently, and University was left chasing only 116, a target that Larkin, Robertson and Charlie Dummer ran down in only 64 balls.  Robertson, who cracked an unbeaten 37 from 19, was playing the 58th finals match of his career, which is outrageous. 

The match of the round, though, was at Mosman, where the home side’s 8 for 154 owed most to Matthew Calder, who cracked five 6s in his 56.  Brandon McLean replied with 52 from 31, and when Jake Turner took the ball for the last over, the Bees needed seven to win with four wickets standing.  The first delivery was angled across Krishna Padmanabhan, who swung and missed.  The second was skied to deep cover, and Liam O’Farrell took the catch.  That gave the strike to McLean, who sliced the ball high into the air, Jordan Cox clutching the ball as he ran towards third man.  So Suthangan Thanabalasingam had strike with seven needed from three and Turner on a hat-trick – which he completed when Cox held a regulation edge behind the stumps.  Declan White then scrambled a single, which left Hayden McLean to face the last delivery with six runs needed.  Turner bowled a length ball on off stump, but it fell perfectly into the arc of Mclean’s swing, and disappeared over the midwicket fence.  It was the kind of finish T20 games are expected to deliver, but so rarely do.

Gladys was spotted in Malcolm Turnbull territory

There was plenty of high-quality collapsing in Premier Cricket last weekend: special mention must go to Sydney, who lost 3-0 at the start of its innings against Penrith in First Grade.  But this week’s Gladys Berejiklian Sudden and Unexpected Collapse of the Week Award goes jointly to Eastern Suburbs and Randwick-Petersham in Second Grade.  Batting first, Easts reached 4 for 102 before losing Max Glen, who spanked 71 from only 63 balls.  And then they fell in a heap, losing 6 for 23.  Dave Dubey, whose Second Grade bowling average had been 54, wrapped up the innings in a spell of 3-1.  In reply, RPs were cruising at 46 without loss, before losing four wickets for six runs, mostly to Ned Patterson.  Coming into the game, Patterson had taken three Second Grade wickets in 8 games this season, at an average of 98.  He grabbed five for 13.  Dubey revived the innings, so that with three wickets standing Randwick Petersham needed 11 to win.  But then Sam Wood struck twice, and the last three wickets added only five runs.  So Easts took the points, but truly, when it comes to this week’s Gladys, we just can’t separate these two sides.

Five Things We Learned from Round 9

It wasn’t Elijah Eales’ fault

So here’s how Elijah Eales’ Saturday went.  He knocked the top off Northern District’s innings by striking twice in his third over.  He wrapped up the innings with 4-27.  He hit three sixes in his 51 not out.  He lost.

He lost mostly because of Scott Rodgie, who batted all the way through the Rangers’ innings for 111 not out, then snuffed out a Mosman middle-order recovery with two quick wickets.  Rodgie is becoming the Ian Moran of his generation – an all-rounder who’s been so good for so long that it seems odd that he never played much at higher levels.  This was his 300th First Grade match, and this season (outside T20s) he averages 81 with the bat and 9 with the ball, which are simply ridiculous numbers.  His form is the main reason why Saturday’s top-of-the-table clash was never much of a contest, and why NDs remain unbeaten with nine wins from as many games.  Basically, Northern District could not turn up for the next six games, and still reach the finals in March.  Not that we recommend it.

Ahillen Beadle still plays

Now in the twentieth year of his First Grade career, Ahillen Beadle has taken a while to get going – in his first six innings, he didn’t make it past thirty.  But there’s plenty of life left in him, and after notching 93 not out against Bankstown before Christmas, he recorded his eleventh First Grade hundred against Fairfield-Liverpool.  Manly was in all sorts of trouble at 3 for 24 before Beadle and Joel Davies, who’s half his age, repaired the damage with a stand of 171.  Ryan Hadley and Greg West then shot out Fairfield’s top order, and the result ended up a lop-sided 172-run victory for Manly.  Beadle’s experience (he passed 8500 runs in Firsts on Saturday) has been vital to Manly during the Big Bash.

The shape of the table is a worry

Even after two upsets on Saturday, Blacktown and Campbelltown-Camden continue to prop up the bottom of the First Grade ladder, and the four teams immediately above them are Hawkesbury, Fairfield-Liverpool, Penrith and Parramatta.  And the club championship ladder isn’t all that different.  In other words, the clubs that represent Sydney’s greatest population centres in the west, north-west and south-west are all performing poorly this season.  Which is a worry, because if the game’s going to grow, this is where it needs to happen.

Of course, this is a snapshot of just one season.  Most of these clubs have had powerful teams in the past, and will again.  And they do continue to produce fine players – it’s just that they’re not quite so good at holding on to them.  There’s no crisis yet – but this is something that the SCA should be watching with interest.

Anyway: the weekend’s upsets were a healthy sign.  Campbelltown enjoyed its best moment of the season by outplaying a depleted Easts at Waverley, with the consistent Nick Appleton contributing a career-best 78.  Campbelltown must be one of the few clubs that looks forward to playing away, given that games at Raby Oval get called off with such alarming frequency this season.  And the Mounties surprised St George, building a solid total after a lively century by Harjas Singh and then defending it despite a ferocious 99 from Blake Nikitaras. 

Gladys was spotted in Hobart

We wanted to present today’s Gladys Berejiklian Sudden and Unexpected Collapse of the Week Award to England, but we can’t, apparently, because (a) they don’t play in Premier Cricket and (b) their collapses are no longer unexpected.  So, we did what you do in that situation and checked out how Sutherland’s Thirds went.  As usual, they gave it their best shot, losing five for ten at the end of their innings against Gordon, but even that was a touch short of their catastrophic best. Actually, Gordon had a stab of its own, losing 5 for 15 at the back end – the wrecker was Christian Bennett, who had figures of 4-132 for the season, before grabbing 4-0 in his last spell.  University of NSW was travelling comfortably in Seconds against Sydney University, reaching 1 for 48 before losing 5 for 7, which was quite outstanding.  But this week’s winner is Mosman’s Fourths, who folded from the relative respectability of 5-109 to lose their last five wickets for five runs.  Two things set this one apart: first, NDs proceeded to lose their first three wickets for seven runs, so between them the teams lost 8 for 12 in a rare Joint Gladys.  Secondly, NDs then scraped home only through a last-wicket stand of 21, so who knows what difference another edged boundary might have made?

Those numbers all stand for something

Two years and counting into the Covid pandemic, all those numbers in the 9am announcements have lost their capacity to shock: so many cases, ICU cases, even deaths, seem to mean little after so long.  Until you can put a name to them.

Former Wests and Randwick fast bowler Bob Barber had been battling a different kind of health crisis – throughout the pandemic, he’d been treated for leukaemia.  He handled gruelling treatment (chemotherapy, bone marrow transplants) with unfailing optimism, good humour and gratitude for the care he received.  But his condition meant he couldn’t be vaccinated, and when he contracted the Covid virus his body didn’t have the strength to withstand it.  He died in hospital on 9 January.

Bob played for Combined Country against City in 1980-81 (dismissing Phil Marks) and joined Wests the following season.  He was an unsophisticated fast bowler with an open chested action: when everything clicked, he bowled rapid inswingers, and the odd ball that landed on the seam and jagged away.  One of his first wickets in the top grade was Peter Clifford, bowled through the gate by a quick one that swung sharply.  When he was off form, he gave his wicket-keepers nightmares by spraying the ball down the leg side, and you could never be sure which Barber was going to show up.  His form was so erratic that he bounced up and down the grades: once he spent a full year in Fourths before coming back to be Wests’ leading wicket-taker in Firsts the next season.  50 of his 289 wickets for the Magpies came in Firsts.  He played a season with St George, and ended up at Randwick, where he helped to win a premiership in Thirds.  But – and this is the point – there was nothing about Grade cricket that he didn’t love.  Anywhere there was a group of old players talking garbage about the game, there you’d find Bob.  As recently as late December, he was at a Wests reunion at Pratten Park.  Next time, they’ll only be able to talk about him, not with him.  Remember that when you hear the numbers tomorrow.