First Grade T20

The 1^st Grade T20 is on today – Montview Oval (Hornsby Heights) starting at 2.00 pm. The boys are aiming to back-to-back.

The T20 Comp was started in 2009/10 and since then we have been in 6 GF’s (not including the latest) and we have won 5. Also included in this Premiership run is the colossal shadow of Jams Makin, our Seniors Director. When he takes the field in Sunday’s GF he will have played in every T20 GF we have played in. He Captained our first 2 wins (2010/11 & 2012/13) and also our only Runner’s-up result (2015/16). Overall, this is James’ 21^st Premiership!

At Club level, this will be our 23^rd T20 GF. Our success rate – we have won 17 and lost 4 games. Outside 1^st Grade, our most successful Team is 4^th Grade with 4 Premiership appearances (3 wins). Outside James, our most successful Captain in the T20’s is Buzz Burrows (C Blue).

Photo: last season’s 1^st Grade T20 Champions.

The Sands of time

A great story from Andrew Fiedler, C3 Red last week:

“Fieds (59 years old this month) is opening the batting & after his young partner, Jack Marsden, is dismissed after 10 overs, Dinesh de Silva joins him.

 Dinesh advises Fieds that he’s 61 years old, and to take it easy with the running between wickets.

 Fieds agrees to the demand.

 After adding 40 together, Fieds is joined by Peter Lees. Pete advises that at 62 years old, Fieds takes it easy between the wickets. Fieds obliges, but Pete gets out soon after.

 Fieds is then joined by Peter Harrison who has hit the magic 70+. Strangely there is no such demand from Harro about taking it easy between the wickets. So after running couple of 2’s, Fieds pushes the envelope & gets run out going for a 2^nd.

 Fieds, the youngster, clearly doesn’t get the demands of his senior players. We really never do stop learning in this game. Always respect your elders!!”

Photo – Andrew Fiedler in full flight at Bradman Oval – way back in his youth 25 January 2009

Father & Sons – 10 years on

Last week we had an anecdote on Rick Turner making his A1 debut after a 10-year apprenticeship. Way back in 2011/12, Rick Captained a father and son team in D1 Grade. Included in this Team were some current day players:

• Chris, Michael and Nick Duck (current B2)
• Rick (current B1) and Alex Turner (current B1)
• Rob and Cam McBrien (current A1)
• Cliff (current D1) and Angus Greenhalgh (current D1)
• Nathaniel Chidgey (current B2)

This story though relates to Rick’s A1 debut last week at Parklands Oval. This time, the roles were reversed – Rick played his first A1 game and the Captain – Cam McBrien who played under Rick way back in 2011/12.

Photo: Rick and Cameron last weekend (30/09).

Behind the scenes

Sometimes, it is worth just taking a step back and thinking about what happens behind the scenes to get full Teams on the field. Last weekend, is traditionally the toughest with a long-weekend combined with AFL & NRL Grand Finals.

Think about this one – 15 Teams with 3 x Byes gave us 12 teams of 11 players = 132 players required. So far so good until you overlay 80 players being unavailable! That is the equivalent of 7 Teams being absent. When you think that the next largest Club in the Association has 7 Teams the numbers of players unavailable was equivalent to an entire Club!

So…a huge thanks to our Seniors Director (James Makin) and every Seniors Captain to get 12 Teams of 11 players. Wow!

The drought has broken

The cricket equivalent to El Nino was broken on the weekend when Steve Quanborough (D1 Red) took 1/8 from 6 overs.

As background, Quan has taken an amazing 195 career wickets @ 23.6. The problem is that Quan took his last wicket on 16^th January 2021 with 2/15. Since then he has had countless dismissals missed – dropped catches, missed stumpings and bad umpiring but….Nil wickets.

This means that it has been 994 days, or 2 years, 8 months and 21 days since his last wicket!

Photo: An oldie but a ‘goody’. Phil Wurth presenting Steve Quanborough with his 100^th wicket ball  – Seniors Presentation Night @ Castle Hill RSL Friday 4 May 2012