Girls Festival of Cricket

Congratulations to our fabulous Girls Directors (Suz & Grant Colburt) plus their many helpers who made the Girls Festival of Cricket played on 11 February such a great success.

Teams from North Shore JCA joined us to play Stages 2 (12 to 14 years) & 3 (15 to 17 years) T20 games at John Purchase Oval and Greenway Park. We combined this with Pink Stumps and raised $2,091 for the McGrath Foundation.

Since 2010/11 we have now raised $54,789 for this wonderful cause and are classified by the McGrath Foundation as a ‘Hall of Fame’ contributor.

Feedback on the day has been amazing. One of the many highlights was that Girls from both sides who showed great Spirit of Cricket were presented with a wonderful book on Women’s cricket signed with a personal message by one of our Club’s cricketing greats – Denise Annetts.

Photo: Divy, our Stage 3 Spirit of Cricket award winner, proudly displaying the book.

Semi Finalists – Juniors

This year we entered an amazing 42 Teams – equal to the record number of Junior Team registrations last season. It is worth keeping in mind that in Juniors we have a ‘Participation over Results’ policy where Teams aren’t stacked to win Premierships and where everyone gets a go.

That said, this Sunday we have 9 of our Teams playing in Semi Finals and are representing us in every Age Division that has Finals (U12 to U16/17):

• U16/17 White (1^st) & U16/17 Red (3^rd)
• U15 Blue (2^nd) & U15 Green (4^th)
• U14 Blue (1^st)
• U13 Orange (1^st ) – Hazlewood Competition & Purple (2^nd) – Starc Competition
• U12 Red (2^nd) & Gold (4^th)

This is a significant achievement and goes a long way to explaining why we have had strong Senior teams over many years.

Strong finishers

Most seasons we have Teams who dominate from the first game. This season we have A1 (Cameron) and B2 (Todd) and are big targets for Opposition teams.

We also have those Teams that are the quiet achievers. This season the C3 Red’s (Cameron) are the standouts.

At the Christmas break they had won just 2 out of 8 games and were sitting at the bottom of the table. After the break they stormed home, winning 5 of the last 6 games to finish either 2^nd or 3^rd. In a fitting end to the season, in the last game, the boys stormed home to take the final wicket in the last over of the day with a brilliant slips catch to get the 6 points.

From their own assessment, this is a team with an average age ‘well over 40’ and not the fittest team in the comp but….they have something that is special and who knows how far they can go. We are all super proud of you boys – win, lose or draw next weekend.

Photo: Our C3 (Red) Team meeting before the season – Cameron Croucher (Captain), Amit Sen, Brent Van Wyk, Aniket Mahindre, Happy Rana, Rohit Bhalla, Mukund Venkat, Narayanan, Chetan Chandrasekher, Brijesh Sharda, Saurabh Kapoor – 20^th September 2022

Achievements

With the main season now over, congratulations to all Teams who played Seniors this season. A special congratulations to our Semi Finalists:

• A1 (Cameron – 2^nd
• A2 (Campbell) – 2^nd or 3^rd
• B1 Red (Birdcage) – 3^rd or 4^th depending on other results
• B2 (Todd) – 1^st
• C3 Red (Cameron) – 2^nd or 3^rd
• D2 (Ross) – 3^rd or 4^th

We won our first Premiership in 1951/52 (C1 Grade) and since then we have participated 165 Grand Finals. We won 91 and been Runners up 74 times.

Also we had 2 century scorers on the weekend:

• Sean Clarence (A1) – 100 no (our 515^th ton)
• Will McLennan (C2 Blue) – 100 no (516^th ton).

Photo – Will McLennan @ Greenway Park – 20 November 2022

The long way

We have had lots of players over the years who have taken a long time between achieving major milestones. The latest is a good one. Who else that one of our favourite ‘sons’ – Steve Quanborough (D1 Red).

Quan has taken an amazing 195 wickets – just 5 away from the magical 200 wicket mark and a place in the top 46 bowlers of all time. The problem is that Quan has been sitting on 195 wickets since taking his last wicket on 29^th January 2022 playing C3 Grade. This makes it 400 days since his last wicket.

The problem is that Quan has had a definite 7 x missed opportunities including a couple of sitters. If Quan had played at least part of his career with players who could take on average 50% of the chances he creates he would be up around our top 20 bowlers of all time.

What better musical interlude than the great Super Tramp song – The Long Way Home

Photo – Steve Quanborough (left) & Parin Pillamarri – Northholm Grammar – 12 November 2022

Super star

Every now and then we come across the exceptional player. In the case of the Hando’s, read as ‘an exceptional family’! This insight is on the youngest Hando – Harry.

To recount last week’s A2 Match Report:

“The youngest Hando bowled two incredible spells. Never have I seen the ball beat the bat of top-order

players with such regularity. Swing. Seam. Pace. The lot.

The figures. Harry finished with 2/16 from 18 overs. I’m no good at Maths, but I know that is an economy lower than 1.

He bowled TOO well. The batsman just couldn’t edge it. Harry would have had more than 30 plays and misses. It was the most sumptuous bowling, but we needed someone to bowl a fraction worse.”

On to this week the Report from the roving journalist from A2 (Justin), Harry raised the bar to the next level:

“Those who read last week’s column will remember the praise showered on young Harry Hando, who delivered an angelic, almost heavenly spell of bowling that was described as a spiritual experience by his teammates.

 Well this week Harry Hando proved he was in fact human and not a God-like figure by contracting Covid.”

What better musical interlude than the classic – Superstar