Five things we learned from Round 4 - NSW Premier Cricket 2023-24
Sydney University Cricket Club | November 02, 2023
Tim Cummins is seeing it OK
Tim Cummins isn’t keeping wicket for Sydney University just now, while he recovers from recent eye surgery. He’s still seeing the ball well enough, though, as he’s made his best start to the season with the bat for a few years. University lost two very early wickets against Fairfield, but a bright stand between Damien Mortimer and Ryan McElduff had steadied the innings. Cummins went to the crease when Mortimer, who made a fluent 49, nicked the first ball of the second session. Cummins was quickly in stride, driving Jaydyn Simmons past cover for 4, then using his feet well to attack left-arm spinner Cameron Frendo. Frendo, an Australian Under-19 representative, is certainly a promising talent, but at the moment his length is a touch mechanical, and Cummins went deep into his crease to cut and pull deliveries that were barely fractionally short. Then he turned his attention to Yuva Nishchay, punching a full toss past point and steering the next ball, an even higher full toss, to third man for successive boundaries. He needed only 54 balls to reach fifty, cracking Frendo square to the off side fence. His progress was slower in the final session, but he moved to 99 by pulling a long hop from Yuvraj Sharma for 6, before reaching his fifth First grade hundred by tapping the same bowler past mid-on for a single. University’s tail wagged, Hunar Verma reaching a maiden fifty, and those extra runs proved vital as Fairfield reached 9 for 310 by the end of the second day, just 31 short. There was a colossal appeal for a catch behind from Verma’s bowling in the 95th over of the second day, but the decision went Fairfield’s way and the game ended in a draw.
And then there were two…
Sunday’s two semi-finals in the Kingsgrove Sports T20 competition produced one predictable outcome and one slight upset. It’s no disrespect to Fairfield to say that Randwick-Petersham were strong favourites to win at home, and they stomped home by 54 runs. It might have been closer: Liam Hartcher and Josh Baraba actually took three wickets in the first four overs, but by that time the score was already 49, Jack Wood having whacked 34 from only 12 balls. He hit the first ball he faced over mid-on for 4, then climbed into Connor McKerr, thumping his first two deliveries down the ground for 4 and 6 before launching another 6 over cover and swiping the last ball of the over through wide mid-on for 4 more. Actually, Fairfield fought back well to reduce the home side to 6 for 103 in the 13th over before this year’s Irishman, Jake Egan, took control of the back of the innings. 82 runs came from the last six overs, with Egan carving 61 from 28, with five 6s. Egan took 13 balls to reach 16, but the 38 runs he plundered from the last two overs, with some remarkably clean striking and some meaty pulls against Hartcher, put the game beyond Fairfield’s reach. Fairfield’s one chance of victory was a flying start from Jaydyn Simmons and Nick Carruthers, but Riley Ayre ended that prospect with a suffocating early spell.
At Howell, Gordon’s 4 for 140 was no better than par against opponents like Ryan Gibson and Tyran Liddiard, but highly disciplined bowling, especially from orthodox left-armer Matthew Wright and Nick Toohey, restricted Penrith to just 8 for 104 to win by an unexpectedly comfortable margin. So it’s Gordon and Randwick-Petersham in next week’s grand final.
Runs and more runs at Batswood Oval
If you’re a batsman and you play for Gordon, what’s a par season? Somewhere around 1500 runs? Half your games are at Chatswood Oval, which typically presents you with a very flat pitch and at least one tiny boundary: it’s an ugly place to bowl. Manly scored 7 for 398 on the first day, and didn’t win. On the second day, Louis Bhabra, Joe Gillard and Trystan Kennedy – three batsmen with very limited First Grade experience – guided Gordon to 1 for 152, and if Axel Cahlin had managed to get going, the home side might have run down Manly’s score. As it was, they reached 8 for 347 before the game was drawn. Honours went to Kennedy, who played very well for his first hundred in the top grade, which he carried on to 132. Best for Manly was the veteran Ahillen Beadle who, despite being 63 years old (approximately) scored a stylish 60 opening the batting before winkling out three batsmen with his artful left-arm spin.
Harrison KING finds it easier in First Grade
Having taken three wickets in his first three Second Grade games of the season, Parramatta’s Harrison King (or, as PlayHQ calls him, Harrison KING) hadn’t stated an obvious case for promotion to Firsts. But he was elevated for the game against Blacktown and made a good impression, bustling in and attacking the stumps. Only two runs came from his first four overs, and he struck for the first time in his fifth, beating Puru Gaur for pace and winning an lbw decision. An energetic right-arm fast-medium, KING (sorry, King) ended the game with 4-27 and 1-5, and he looks like a useful addition to the highly efficient Parramatta attack.
If we’re talking about you, you might be in trouble
Over the years, Five Things has gained a reputation (among its intensely devoted readership base of eighteen cricket nerds) as being, sometimes, a touch on the snarky side. We’ve had complaints that we’ve implied that some players are a touch above their ideal playing weight, that certain batsmen are good at getting to twenty but not much further, and that we’ve picked on certain clubs more than others. Some people even found our use of the term “pie-chucker” to be unnecessarily mean-spirited. So this season, we’ve tried to be relentlessly positive and upbeat, but it hasn’t turned out very well. In the last round, we lavished praise on Jordan Gauci, who promptly turned around and made 0 the next game. We said nice things about Elijah Eales, who then went wicketless and missed out with the bat in his next outing. We said that Randwick-Petersham was playing well, and that side spent the whole of the next Saturday leaking runs to Wests. We welcomed the arrival of Gordon’s Mitchell Lole, who was then caned for 68 runs from 12 overs by Manly. So… yeah. The lesson is, don’t be too concerned if occasionally we sound harsh: the time to be really worried is when we say something nice about you.
