Anecdotes – Round 12, Day 2
Heat wave
Historical significance
The abandonment of play in the Association last weekend set a number of records:
- Saturday 10th November was Day 2 of a record breaking 3-days of high temperatures with Friday 45, Saturday 44 and Sunday 45 degrees. Further, Sydney’s West recorded its hottest ever day, hitting 46.9 degrees at Penrith, while Richmond touched the 47 degree mark.
- The Association cancelled all games for the first time since being established in 1921
- The Sydney Cricket Association that administers the Grade Competition abandoned all competition – the first time since being established in 1853.
- At Club level, we got a lot of feedback (email, phone calls, social media) about the need to cancel games. Once the Association cancelled games the next wave of feedback came – why games should continue.
The aftermath
The number of emails, SMS messages and ‘phone calls at Association and Club level demanding, with various levels of passion, that the Round be abandoned had to be seen to be believed. It was only matched the number and passion of opinions after the decision to abandon the Round that complained about the decision. The story is that you can’t win.
Only in Australia
After having Day 1 of the Round abandoned last week due to extreme heat this week, every Seniors game ended in a draw with a severe hail storm and rain hitting all grounds.
“Isn’t it good to get out”
Steve Burrows (C2 Blue Captain and U10s Juniors Age Convenor) shared a story the other night about how much the boys in the U10s are looking forward to getting out. Up until the first game after the Christmas / New Year break the boys played ‘Average’ cricket from Kanga days to U8s, U9 and the first part of U10s – playing with soft cricket balls and batting for overs in partnership. Now they are playing ‘Real’ cricket with a hard ball and where you can get out. We think that in a very short period the days of batting on when you are out will seem like heaven.
“I thought I saw lightning”
In the B1 game against Glenorie Kyle Faber was on 92 and powering towards a ton. With a storm approaching, Josh Banner (pictured) was umpiring and stopped the game because he thought he saw lightning “a while ago”. Anyway the rain and hail came down and the match was abandoned with Kyle stuck on 92. To be fair to Josh you don’t take chances with lightning but the boys would have been a bit more forgiving if the sighting was a little sooner than ‘a while ago’.
Space cadet (aka Sharp as a bowling ball) Award
Richard Hughes (C2 Red) is enthusiastic about playing. After making multiple calls to his Skipper and Steve Quanborough about gaps in any Teams, Richie turned up to the C2 game to support and see if there were any gaps at short notice – there were none. Anyway, at the coin toss, Richie then asked the opposing Captain if they needed a player because he was available. The St Ives Skipper commented that it “…would cost you a bit”. Richie, thinking there was a possibility asked “How much”.
The thinking man’s cricketer
Ray Khamis (C1) opened the batting with storm clouds approaching in our 2nd innings run chase. The opposition only had 9 players and as the games finish was close they set a field that had 5 slips, gully and a mid wicket. Second ball of the innings Ray’s saw the odd gap in the field and went for a big hit. With great skill he managed to lob it to 5th slip and was out.
The Peter Lees show
Out of Character
Peter Lees (C2 Blue and our Club Finance Director) is one of our outstanding players who has scored 4,324 runs and sits as our 14th highest run scorer. Peter is also a fast scorer who doesn’t like hanging around. Anyway, a couple of weeks ago the boys were playing St Ives who for some reason decided to bat on well into the 2nd day on a slow Glenhaven Oval to set us over 300 to win. With no chance to get the runs the boys just batted out the 60 overs for a draw. Peter batted for 30 overs for just 16 runs to bat out the day. This is what you call putting the Team above the individual.
9 Rated Captain
With Steve Buzz Burrows missing a game Peter stepped up to Captain the side and do it well. Peter commented at the Club afterwards that he may have set a record in being the first C2 Captain in our history to have an Association rating of 9 – meaning that this is a D2 rating.