Evan Atkins - my best captain

Barry Davison was my captain in 3rd grade in 1983. He led a young team like the pied piper and he was inspirational with his batting, making some opposing spinners cry with his sweeping and lofted off drives.

His field placements and bowling changes during that season as I think back were beyond a lot of the players cricketing comprehension. We really had no idea what he was doing, we just followed the leader.

Looking back, he was so far ahead of the game I didn’t appreciate the minutia at the time, but it was amazing.

Lenny Pascoe was a different kettle of fish. 1985 we were a very young first grade team finding our way. Justin Kenny, Mark Chapman, Phil Weatherall, Kevin Tuite all very inexperienced and happily following Len around, a few of us in our first seasons.

We played UNSW at Caringbah and Geoff Lawson had just jumped off a plane from a successful Ashes series and very keen to play grade cricket. Friday night there was a huge storm in Caringbah and there were holes in the covers. When the covers were removed there was a one metre circular wet spot just short of a length at the northern end. You could squeeze you finger into the patch up to the first joint on your index finger. Anyway, the young Sutherland side were on tenterhooks as Len went out to for the toss. He walked back towards the rooms motioning that we were batting. He closed the dressing room door and announced to the team that he had won the toss but decided to bat on a wet wicket to see how his young batsmen would react and handle the situation

I played most of my first-grade cricket under John Dyson. After the ban he and Steve Rixon had post the rebel tour to South Africa, Dyso decided to go to Sydney Uni so he could captain a first grade side while Stumpa took the reins at Sutherland.

As a wicket keeper I followed Dyso to Uni and the way he blended a side together with stalwarts like Mick O’Suilivan and John Grimble was amazing.

The Uni side was young with some serious talent but he had the nous to bring that side together into what was a happy well-functioning side.

We both returned to Sutherland, and he mentored players like Jake Kenny, Phil Weatherall, Glenn McGrath, Mark Chapman to maximise what they had as cricketers. As a 40 year old he played some inspiring knocks against the likes of Holdsworth, Killen, Alley and a few slower nemesis’s I won’t mention.