Lindfield District Cricket Club 4th Grade Report 2023-2024
Lindfield District Cricket Club | September 04, 2024
The late great Richie Benaud said, ‘Being a Captain is 90 per cent luck and 10 per cent hard work.’ And we know that the harder you work the luckier you get in sport. And so on a wintery day last year I had the luck of being asked to Captain 4th Grade for the upcoming season.
To begin, I’ll start with a few thank you’s.
Firstly, a big thank you to Peter Speirs or Speirsy as he’s known by most. He took the reins at the beginning of the season while I nursed an injury for a few rounds. Very grateful for his willingness to do this. But also, very thankful for his sage advice and sense checking before, during and after matches throughout the season. He has an invaluable experience that I was very grateful to be able to tap into.
Would like to say a big thank you to every player that was selected and played in the 4th Grade team. Playing in 4s is an interesting and often challenging experience. This is mainly because the team isn’t always settled or quite the same playing group each round. So understandably it can feel a little disjointed or non-cohesive.
But also, because it is used as a team to develop younger players. We saw this with the two Heffernan boys. It was awesome to see a father and sons combination playing together. They will be Lindfield superstars in years to come!
But every player that came into the side played with that Lindfield spirit and gave it their all. Thats all I could ask for. When things weren’t quite going our way, we just got on with it as a team. I'm very grateful for the team's belief and trust in me as their captain. There were a few hard selections calls we had to make throughout the season. But again, those affected by these hard calls accepted it without complaint and got on with playing in another grade. And I think that speaks volumes about how our players put the club first.
I'm not a Bulldogs fan. (More of a Panthers man). But I saw their club mantra posted on their players lockers the other day, and it said, “Club first. Team second. Individual third”
I strongly believe we have a similar belief and spirit at Lindfield.
To quickly recap our season, we had some close games and some predictable games. But we had two wins which I'm very proud of. The first being against Pennant Hills where we were able to be part of the club sweep. The second win against George’s River was epic. I said on the day and Ill say it again, to bat the whole 76 overs (day) and into the next week is quite the feat. It’s a rare feat. So much so that their stand-in captain complained about how boring we were for batting all day. We put 200 plus runs on the board. So welcome to two-day cricket, fella! And then to roll them for 80 odd runs just put icing on the cake. That was a great win.
I feel we could’ve ended the season with 4 wins. But that thing called luck I talked about earlier wasn’t on our side. Two games were abandoned due to the weather. In both Games we were in the box seat for a win. The first being against Auburn where the second day was rained out.
The second game was against Lane Cove. We were four (4) down and needing 40 runs to win, rain, umpires and Oscar winning dives all conspired against us for a great victory set up by Andy Bartlett's Michelle Pfeiffer - 5/17 to be exact. Andy, where is that ball!
But as they say in sport, never let the ‘what ifs’ eat you. They can be debilitating. So instead use them as motivation for the next game or season. Recognise the effort and build on it for next time.
I will end by saying congrats to our three 4th Grade award winners. Mitch Sturt for the Batting Award. Andy Bartlett for the Bowling Award and my Captains pick which went to Peter Speirs. I'm very pleased for each of these players as awards reflect their commitment and efforts throughout the whole season. Congrats again to you all!
Again, thank you to all 4th grade players this season. I can't wait to do it all again.
See you next season!
Anthony Carroll
Fourth Grade Captain Season 2023/24
