Tales From Western Suburbs Poidevin-Gray Shield
Western Suburbs District Cricket Club Sydney | September 15, 2024
The following story is an extract from our 2006 publication “Cricket in Black and White: 110 Not Out: The history of the Western Suburbs District Cricket Club”.
Western Suburbs has always had an uneasy relationship with Grade cricket's other junior competition, the Poidevin-Gray Shield. Established in 1926-27 for players under the age of 21, this competition was originally intended as a means of feeding cricketers from junior associations into Grade clubs. At that time, few Grade clubs were able to fill an under-21 team from the ranks of their own members, but that position changed over the years, and so did the character of the competition. It is now a unique opportunity for players from different grades to play together, so that a typical Poidevin-Gray team will include cricketers who play in every Grade from Firsts to Fifths.
Logically, in a competition of this kind, the teams with more highly- graded players ought to perform best; but Poidevin-Gray has a habit of not quite working out that way. Many clubs - including Wests - have a baffling history of underperforming when their teams look strong on paper. A common problem has been the difficulty some First Graders have had in motivating themselves to perform at their best against opponents with more modest credentials.
For several seasons, too, there were scheduling problems to overcome. Punishingly, Poidevin- Gray games were played on the least suitable days for cricket, like Boxing Day and New Year's Day. Everyone who played in a New Year's Day game had a story ot tel about it: one Wests player remembered that:
“I was really young and keen and new to the club, so I made sure I got some sleep and got to the ground on time. When I went into the dressing room, there was this guy lying on his back on the table in the middle of the dressing room. His eyes were wide open but he wasn't moving a muscle. I asked the captain, 'Who's this?' and he said, 'That's Col. He's opening the bowling for us today.' ”
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Twice, however, Western Suburbs has risen above the pitfalls of the competition to claim the Shield, and both times the team was led by a future Test cricketer.
John Watkins' team of 1963-64 dominated the competition through its highly efficient attack. Swing bowler Dennis Kelleard took 16 wickets at an average of only eight runs each, and formed a penetrative new-ball combination with Fred Kirchen. Leg-spinner Watkins collected 15 wickets at nine runs apiece, and left-armer Trevor Adlington bowled with great economy. They all bowled so well that off-spinner Dave Joseph, who was to collect nearly 200 First Grade wickets for Wests, was scarcely required to bowl. He did bat effectively, however, scoring 217 runs in only five innings, and Bob Bartlett and Graham Windley ensured that the bowlers' good work was never wasted. The decisive match in the southern division of the competition was over almost before it began, with Kelleard and Kirchen taking the first three St George wickets before a run had been scored. And the same pair used the new ball with devastating effect in the final against the winner of the northern division, Glebe.
In Poidevin-Gray, a lower grade player determined to prove his worth can often give greater value to his team than a complacent First Grader. The point was never better made than in 1978-79, when the undisputed star of Wests' Poidevin- Gray campaign was a 16 year old Fourth Grader. Steve Bowden, a nephew of Ray Bowden, was in his first season with the club, and sent down left-arm orthodox spinners with a low arm and no remarkable turn. In several seasons of Grade cricket, he put in several valuable efforts with bat and ball, without ever rising above Third Grade. Yet Poidevin-Gray batsmen in 1978-79 simply had no idea what to do with him. Accurate and thoughtful, Bowden collected 21 wickets at 10.90 in five matches and, as the club's Annual Report noted, the Wests "attack of two fourth graders, a third grader and a second grade opening batsman were so effective that in each game the opposing side was fully dismissed."
There was more polish to the team's batting; Dirk Wellham hit two half-centuries in three innings and future First Graders Matt Troy, Ken Shelston, Glen Rowlands, Greg Bowden and John Hurley gave depth to the side. Wests met a strong Northern District team in the three-day final and, with Steve Bowden bowling with phenomenal accuracy, dismissed their opponents for a moderate 233. But rain washed out the other two days of the game, and so the title was shared. Five members of the side had already won a Green Shield premiership cap with Wests and Dirk Wellham, uniquely, led Wests to victory in both competitions.
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