SUCC Feature: Five things we learned... Round 11

Blacktown is on a roll

The youngest club in the Grade competition is enjoying a surge towards the First Grade finals, winning five of its last seven games (and drawing the other two). There have been some handy scalps in there – table leaders Bankstown, Manly and, last round, Easts.  This success has come more from solid teamwork than exceptional individual efforts – the club’s most successful bowler in Firsts is Matthew Bursa, with only 13 wickets, while its leading run-scorer, Simon Keen, has 469 runs to his credit.  But contributions have come when they’ve been needed.  Easts roared away to a phenomenal start (one for 209) before leg-spinner Gabriel Joseph collected five wickets to limit the total to 320.  Keen (119) led the chase but it was a composed 62 not out from wicket-keeper Tim Doonan that steered Blacktown to the points.  Blacktown may lack stars, but they’re playing with plenty of confidence and momentum.  And, for good measure, the Second Grade side is only one win out of the top six.

 Rain messes things up

A number of sides hoping to stay in touch with the competition leaders endured the frustration of watching the rain wash away their chances.  Campbelltown-Camden and Penrith were unable to bowl a single ball at Raby Oval; Sydney slipped from first place when rain hit Owen Earle Oval.  Sydney University outplayed Parramatta, with Liam Robertson compiling an impressive hundred and Nick Larkin and Mark Faraday weighing in with high-class innings, but the loss of over forty overs across the two days left the Students unable to force a result on a very flat pitch.  With more rain on the way, this won’t be the last time this season that results are impacted by the weather.

Rain really messes up Northern District

It’s hard to know what more Northern District could have done in Second Grade to win some points against St George.  61.3 overs of play were possible at Mark Taylor Oval, and in that time the home side limited St George to seven for 178 before setting off on a frenetic chase.  Openers Dan Friedrich and Neil Kimberley slammed 100 runs from 75 deliveries before the rain came – but the rain brought the game to a close.  It’s hard to recall a more dominant performance in recent times that was rewarded by precisely no points.  The draw keeps Northern District just outside the top six in Seconds, five points behind a rather lucky St George side.

Cook has given Wests an edge

Western Suburbs may be enduring a tough season, but the side has continued to improve throughout the year, and the attack looks decidedly stronger with the addition of former NSW Country leg-spinner, Jonathan Cook, who joined the club in January.  In his first three matches, Cook (who had recently been playing in the Illawarra competition) has snared 2-47 against Penrith, 4-40 against Hawkesbury and 6-94 from 30 overs against Fairfield-Liverpool.  Fairfield appeared set to overhaul Wests’ total of 329 when openers Wendell Delpechitra and Dean Attard built a partnership of 207, but Cook maintained consistent accuracy and pressure, and reaped the rewards when the middle order tried to force the pace.  Wests will need Cook to be at his best this weekend, when they visit Bankstown.

Stephen King is unlucky

No, not the guy who writes books about people getting carved up by supernatural creatures or disgruntled housekeepers: the one who opens the bowling in Third Grade for Sydney.  King’s season has been nothing to get excited about – before Round 11 he had six wickets at an average of 35.  But the pitch at Benson’s Lane 2 was distinctly ordinary, and after Sydney was rolled for 92, King took the ball for the second over of Hawkesbury’s innings.  First he trapped veteran Michael Goeke lbw, then hit the pads of keeper Lawson Clark, and completed his hat-trick when he had Mitch Stevens caught by Jackson Edwards.  At the start of the next over, James Pike took another wicket, so Hawkesbury’s total was four wickets for two runs.  But Hawks captain Dean Laing – who is nearly as old as Goeke – stopped the nonsense with an unbeaten 55.  So: you wait all your career for a hat-trick and to have your opponents 4 for 2, and you lose.  Unlucky.

SUCC Feature: Top Tens

BATTING:

BOWLING:

SUCC Feature: Milestone Monday

Nick Larkin’s 60 in First Grade against Parramatta took him past 500 runs for the Club this season, and past 1000 in all matches (516 for University,15 in his only innings for the Sixers and 518 for NSW in the Futures League).

Liam Robertson’s 119against Parramatta was his second century in First Grade.  It took him to 500 runs for the club this season, and he also passed 4000 runs for the Club in all grades.

Mark Faraday’s 94 in First Grade was his third dismissal in the 90s this season, which appears to be a new record for the Club.

Josh Richards’ 33 (from only 15 balls) against Parramatta was his highest First Grade score for the Club.

Nick Arnold made his First Grade debut against Parramatta, becoming the 744th Sydney University First Grader.

In an excellent Second Grade bowling effort against Parramatta, Xavier Frawley (3-26), Kieran Tate (3-26) and Jono Craig Dobson (3-28 on his Second Grade debut) all achieved their best Second Grade figures for the club.

Jack Maddocks’ matchwinning 46 not out against Parramatta was his highest Second Grade score.

SUCC Feature: Top Ten

BATTING:

BOWLING:

SUCC Feature: Five things we learned... Round Ten

The top six is taking shape

Ten rounds gone, five to go, and in First Grade the top six is starting to take shape.  Sydney still leads, on 48 points, with Bankstown and Penrith on 42, Easts on 35, Campbelltown-Camden on 34 and premiers Manly (who were docked 1.1 points for a slow over rate against University of NSW) recovering from a slow start with 33.9.  The six teams on 30, Fairfield on 26, and two teams on 24 will all think their chances are still alive.

Upsets happen at this time of year, rain can cause havoc, and predictions would be silly.  In theory, 30 points are available in the three two day games and say another 14 (if bonus points are taken into account) in the two limited-over games.  So Sydney University, on 24 points, could mathematically end up on 68.  More realistically, if we assume that most of the results from here on will be six-pointers, it looks as though teams will need at least 52 points to have a chance of reaching the qualifying finals.  That means that Sydney will be there – barring some extraordinary results, they need to win only two of their next five games to secure a place and only one of their remaining games (against Manly this week) is against a side that’s currently in the top six.  Two wins should make Bankstown secure, and they get to play the bottom two teams (Wests and North Sydney, with one win between them).  Penrith also needs two wins to claim a place in the finals, and has a tougher draw than Bankstown, but should manage it.  Which leaves something like nine teams pushing for three spots.  Each week from here on, one or two clubs will drop off the pace.  In the big match-ups this week, Easts (35) can make things hard for Blacktown (30), while Randwick-Petersham (30) will try to leap-frog over Manly (33.9) and Northern District and St George (both on 30) will battle to stay in touch with the pack.  

Jake Wholohan has broken through

If you’ve played cricket against Penrith in the last forty-odd years, the chances are that you’ve played against someone called Wholohan.  Trevor Wholohan was club President for years, and his son Michael was a keeper-batsman in Firsts and Seconds for what seemed like decades (and has since been involved in coaching at the club).  Now 18 year old Jake Wholohan has worked his way into First Grade (via the NSW Under 19 team and some solid efforts in Seconds).  The slightly-built off spinner took time toacclimatise to the higher grade, but broke through against Fairfield-Liverpool, exploiting a soft pitch to produce a match-winning spell of 5-28 from 16 overs.  He looks set for a lengthy career in the game, before he settles down to the more serious business of breeding another generation of Wholohans for the club.

James Psarakis makes it look easy

Another outstanding performer from this year’s Under-19 National Championships was Tamworth all-rounder James Psarakis, who now turns out for Randwick-Petersham.  Already this season, Psarakis has scored a 91 in Seconds and 98 in his first game in First Grade (excluding a couple of T20 matches).  In Round Ten, Psarakis walked out to bat at 6-91 after Mosman’s Ellery Clugston has taken three wickets for next to nothing in the space of two overs.  Over the next three hours, Psarakis helped to add 94 runs for the eighth wicket and another 60 to the ninth, lifting Randwick-Petersham to a presentable total.  His maiden First Grade hundred included five sixes.  An uncomplicated player, he’s making batting look a very simple task at the moment – altogether, for Randwick-Petersham and the Under-19s this season, he’s scored 1051 runs at an average close to fifty.

Ben Patterson is fun to watch

In Dubbo, Ben Patterson used to play for the Dubbo Rugby Cricket Club, a name which suggests a strange hybrid game in which batsmen are tackled as they run between the wickets and fieldsmen occasionally drop-kick the ball towards the stumps.  Anyway, he made his way to Sydney this season (after a stint in Derbyshire club cricket) to try his luck with Hawkesbury as an opening bowler.  It’s fair to say that the jury is still out on that one (so far this season, his wickets cost 57 runs each, although bowling on Owen Earle Oval can do that to you).  But what has been an unqualified success is his batting in the lower order.  Going in at nine against Eastern Suburbs in Round Seven, he belted 11 fours in an innings of 72.  That came at a relatively sedate pace, from 118 deliveries.  Promoted to number eight the next week, against Northern District, he blasted 64 not out from only 51 balls, with fifty runs coming in boundaries.  And in Round Ten, against Wests, he played a decisive innings in a low-scoring match, smashing 42 from 30 balls (with five 6s and two fours, meaning that he ran for only four of them).  Patterson is capable of bowling at decent pace, and if his bowling continues to improve, he should develop into a very capable all-rounder; in the meantime, he will always be fun to watch.

It’s time for the revenge of the pie-chuckers

Regular readers of Five Things will have noticed our interest in – some would say obsession with – the balance between bat and ball in Grade cricket.  What it boils down to is that life is pretty tough for bowlers, especially before Christmas when the pitches are flat and dry and the batsmen do as they please.  Fortunately, if you’re a lower grade pie-chucker, things even up after Christmas and every now and then the intervention of rain produces an underprepared pitch or skimpy covers create a wet one.  This allows bowlers who had, for the first few months of the season, been crashed all over the place, to reap extravagant rewards simply for possessing enough skill to land the ball somewhere near the stumps.  With that in mind, let’s celebrate the efforts of Eastern Suburbs’ Jack Remond who, despite the wisdom and insight he must have gleaned from his pre-season stint as a member of Sydney University’s Australian Universities Games team, battled through his first nine games of the season in Third Grade to take only two wickets for 161 runs.  Not to worry – in Round Ten, in Fourths against Sutherland at Trumper Park, he returned the absurd figures of four wickets for three runs from 5.2 overs, as Sutherland subsided for only 32.  As we said two weeks ago, about now is a good time to be a lower-grade medium pacer – further proof of which was provided by Wests’ veteran, Col Barry, who snared five for nine from ten overs against Hawkesbury.

SUCC Feature: Milestone Monday

In NSW’s crushing defeat of Queensland in the last round of Futures League matches, Nick Larkin’s outstanding innings of 148 was his career-best performances at this level. 

Will Somerville’s 6-81 against Gordon was his best bowling analysis for the Club.  It was the sixth time he has taken five wickets in a First Grade innings (two of which were for Eastern Suburbs).

Tom Kierath’s 83 against Gordon was his 15th innings of fifty or more in Second Grade (including two centuries).

Jack Holloway’s 43 against Gordon was his highest score in Second Grade.

Xavier Frawley made his Second Grade debut for the Club against Gordon.

Nick Arnold’s 101 not out against Gordon (including 8 sixes) was his maiden Third Grade century and his second century for the Club in Grade matches.  He also passed 1000 runs for the Club.

Lawrence Neil-Smith made his Third Grade debut for the Club against Gordon (in which he took five wickets over the two innings for only 41 runs).

Jarrod Waterlow has passed 2000 runs for the Club.

Josh Toyer (297 wickets) and Nigel Cowell (296 wickets) have both moved past Alan Jakes (295) and now stand 21st and 22nd on the Club’s all-time list of wicket-takers.

SUCC Feature: In the sheds... With the big dogs

It’s the season of 2008/09, my first for the club. After a handful of games in second grade I am selected to make my debut (courtesy of the bracket, pun intended) in first grade, week 2 of the round against Gordon. I walk out to open the batting with Ed Cowan. Matt Nicholson will be bowling for Gordon. I look up as I walk onto University number 1 oval to see the unmistakable figure of Greg Matthews strolling toward me. He grabs my arm and says “You’re playing with the big boys now”.

Now Mo definitely said ‘big boys’, but a more commonly used phrase is ‘big dogs’. Urban dictionary defines ‘Big Dog’ as “one at the top of his game. Be it business man, doctor, sportsman, etc”. It’s safe to say that SUCC has had our share of Big Dogs grace the sheds.

MacGill, Clark, Casson, Cowan, Matthews, Mail, Henry, Cameron, Abbott, Carters, Moran…. You wouldn’t lose too many fixtures with that side… and that’s just since I joined the club.

In that list, they come no bigger than Stuart MacGill. One of Australia’s greatest spinners, he returned to the SUCC ranks in 2011/12 in an attempt to spark a T20 comeback. It has become an infamous event within the first grade side, but let me share a story of a time when I bit off far more than I could chew.

After an emphatic victory, the quorum of the first grade side slipped into the ritual ‘team tub’. Those who have been lucky enough to play at number 1 oval, will know the perils of arriving late to such an event. As the majority of us settled into our usual showers and soaping routines, we could hear Stuart rustling about with his towel on the periphery. Some knowing looks toward me indicated that the play was on. I reached for the one shower head that shoots in a powerful singular jet, and as he strolled through the opening he was meet with an intense stream of ice cold water to the midsection. Instantly seeing red at this show of disrespect, he headed back out to the sheds and swiftly scooped up my playing kit and dragged it toward the showers. The only thing that saved me from an expensive trip to Kingsgrove was the large naked frame of Ian Moran, as he blocked an increasingly agitated MacGill from throwing my kit under the shower.

In the ensuing minutes, amongst nervous laughter from the group and a hapless explanation by myself as to why I thought it was appropriate to take such action, I was firmly reminded by Stuart of exactly where I fit into the ‘SUCC hierarchy’.

Any new shed can be an intimidating place. A shed filled with Big Dogs even more so. But there is one thing you learn when you spend some time with these characters. They are just regular blokes, who happen to be very good cricketers. Once you find your place within the side, and settle into the team dynamic, you have an amazing opportunity to learn from guys who have been to the top levels of the game. The thing with Big Dogs is, their bark is worse than their bite.

The Uni Number 1 sheds are one of my favourite places. Some of the most valuable learning you can do at cricket is after stumps is called and you have a more relaxed opportunity to assess the day with your peers. Long may the traditions continue, and I hope to see you all in the sheds as we push for more success this season.