Anecdotes – Grand Final & Season Wrap-up

100 Premiership wins

Going into the Grand Finals we had won 97 Senior Competition Premierships across all Grades – e.g.; T20, Standard competition & Sunday Premier League (SPL).

After winning 3 x Premierships (A1, B1 & C4) we clocked up our 100^th Seniors Premiership for a win percentage of 55.2%.

We have now appeared in 181 Seniors Grand Finals in our history.

Photo: Premiership Trophies – A1 Rofe Shield, Sunday Competition (Sophie) leaning on Rofie’s left door, Frank Sagar Trophy (Most wickets in a Grade – Tim Scoular), 5th Grade T/20 Cup and the B2 Premiership (J E Palmer Trophy) – far right.

Watch this space

Trisha Yadav, Stage 2 Girls (12 to 14 years of age) won our Lisa Sthalekar ‘Senior Girls Player of the Year’ at the Presentation Day last weekend.

Trisha had an amazing season – scoring 272 runs at the amazing average of 272.00! Trisha also took 21 wickets @ 16.5.

To put this in context, in 2002/03, an emerging young player named Meg Lanning scored 333 runs at an average of 111.0 when playing for St Ives.

Watch this space.

Photo: Trisha receiving the Lisa Sthalekar Award Junior Girls Player Of The Year Award.

Grand Final wrap

A1:

• Won their first Premiership since 2014/15 having been Runners up 3 times in between. Our win ratio is now 50% (9 wins from 18 attempts)
• Jackson Preedy (86*) and Billy Gaunt (67) put on an amazing 105 run 3^rd wicket partnership (55% of the total runs scored) – tough runs and match defining.

B1:

• Won their 1^st Premiership since 2016/17 bringing our win ratio to 36% (9 wins from 25 attempts)
• The match winning partnership of 69 unbeaten was by father (Warren with 24*) and son (Daniel Schwartzel with 62*) combination.

C4:

• Teams in C4 have now won 3 out of 3 Premiership attempts – a 100% strike rate!
• The batting was dominated by Arun Chaudhuri (49) and Praneel Singh (111*)
• For Praneel:
  • He brought up his 2000th career run
  • his century is the first in a Grand Final since Phil Wurth’s (109) in A2. It is also his highest score, beating his 88 runs in 2023/24
• Only 4 centuries have been scored in Grand Finals.

Photos: 1) Billy Gaunt and Jackson Preedy; 2) Warren (2nd left) and Daniel 2nd left, front row; 3) Praneel Singh acknowledging his century.

The last dance

The B1 Grand Final was special in many ways.

Apart from winning, it is most likely the last time that the Schwartzel clan (Warren and twin brothers Daniel & Matt) will play together with Daniel moving to Melbourne for study.

Warren and his twin sons (Daniel & Matt) have been an institution in our Club over many years.

The boys played together throughout Juniors and made their Seniors debut in 2017/18, playing together every year since.

With the B1 Final in the balance at 6/149, Warren came to the crease in partnership with Daniel and then put on a match winning 69 run unbeaten partnership. Not only did this carry us to victory but it was the last time they will probably bat together in a game and the last time the Schwartzel clan could play together as a family – a special moment.

By the way, let’s not forget Matt Schwartzel who scored an unbeaten ton (105*) with Cam Bish (52) in the Semi Final to steer us into the Grand Final.

Back to back Premiership winners

Throughout our history there are a number of Captains winning back-to-back in the same Grade (e.g.; Buzz Burrows winning C3 in 2018/19 and again in 2019/20).

However, going back to back in a higher Grade after being promoted is even rarer.

This season, two (2) Captains have achieved this rare result:

• Warren Schwartzel (B1) after winning B2 in 2024/24
• Agniva Chakraborty (C4 Red) after winning D1 in 2023/24

Well done to both Warren and Agniva and their wonderful Teams on this fantastic achievement.

Photos: 1) Warren receiving the B1 Premiers Trophy; 2) Agniva deep in thought during the C4 Premiership win.

New Club record

Congratulations to Kaushal Gandhi (C4 Blue) who set a new Club C4 bowling record this season. Kaushal took 17 wickets during the standard competition at the amazing average of 6.24.

His best bowling performance was 6/7 Vs WPHC White (Agniva) in 3.5 overs during a Sheep Station Trophy game. This wasn’t against a struggling opposition – our Whites who went on to win the Premiership.

At Club level, this broke the previous record held by Reyhan Ahmed set in 2020/21. It is now also the 2^nd best season bowling average in our Club across all Grades. The top 5 Club averages are:

1. 4.93 by Mitchell Blow C3 (2013/14)
2. 6.24 by Kaushal Gandhi C4 (2024/25)
3. 6.33 by Ankit Grover D2 (2012/13)
4. 6.40 by Justin Paterson B2 (2014/15)
5. 6.60 by Chris Christensen C1 (1954/55)

At Association level, while it beat the current C4 record of 7.76 there is a cut-off threshold of 40 wickets to qualify.

Well done Kaushal.

Photo: Kaushal after taking 6/7 against our Premeirship winning White (Agniva) side.

Our elite

With the season now over our ‘Season Best’ performances are:

Top 5 batters

1. Billy Gaunt (A1) 569 runs @ 52.0
2. Chintan Shah (C4 White) – 511 runs @ 39.0
3. Vinoth Sambasivam (D2) – 485 runs @ 37.0
4. Mridul Das (C4 Red) – 471 runs @ 47.0
5. Ben Dunkerley (C1) – 460 runs @ 46.0

Top 5 bowlers

1. Pritam Dhamija (C4 White) – 33 wickets @ 11.0
2. Brahadesh ‘Ram,’ Ramamurthy (C4 Red) – 32 wickets @ 10.4
3. Todd Hutchinson (A2 Red) – 26 wickets @ 20.8
4. Reyhan Ahmed (C1) – 25 wickets @ 16.6
5. Manraj Singh (D1 Red) – 25 wickets @ 17.3

Top 5 wicket-keepers

1. Ian Digby (D1 Red) – 18 dismissals (11 catches & 7 stumpings)
2. Cameron Bish (B1 Red) – 16 (15 catches & 1 stumping)
3. Sufyan Memon (C4 White) – 16 dismissals (11 catches & 5 stumpings)
4. Sahil Kirpalani – 15 (13 catches & 2 stumping)
5. Nic Price (C1) – 14 dismissals (12 catches & 2 stumpings)

Well done to our ‘elite’:

Photo: 1) Billy Gaunt (left) with Jackson Preedy; 2) Pritam (left) after scoring 66* and taking 4/27 Vs Berowra; 3). Ian Digby @ Lord’s in 2022