Throw Back Thursday – Brought to you by Sydney City Toyota

Welcome, welcome, welcome one and all to another great season of Randwick Petersham cricket! And what a season it promises to be. We enter the season as the defending premiers of the Twenty20 Cup and while we would love to take that out again there are a few more ambitions we need to realise-like the 1st Grade Belvidere Cup. We have been so close over the last few years and our time can’t be far off. Let’s hope this is our year!

One of the most exciting things last season was the outstanding development of our younger players throughout all grades. The experience of that season can only be a positive one and we can expect to see some outstanding cricket in the summer months ahead.

And a BIG WELCOME to new players TOM JAGOT formerly of Uni NSW and played under 19’s last year and is again in the squad this season; BEN MITCHELL a left arm orthodox spinner from the South Coast who played NSW Imparja Cup last season and was selected in the National Indigenous Centre of Excellence squad; SAM DOGGETT a right arm quick bowler who has played 1st Grade in Brisbane; BEN NETHERSOLE wo is a right arm fast bowler from Victoria; WILL McGRANE a left arm quick bowler from Bowral; NIKETHAN RADHAKRISHAN is a talented wicket-keeper/batsman of Green Shield age. We are sure all of you will enjoy playing with Randwick Petersham.

We begin our 14th season with a formidable opponent Campbelltown-Camden who we defeated on the last ball to win the Twenty20 Cup last season. Round 1 is a series of two day matches over this Saturday 27 September and the following Saturday 4 October commencing at 9.30 am each day in 1sts and 2nds while 3’s, 4’s and 5’s start at 11.15 am each day. Second and 4th Grade however, will play THIS SATURDAY and SUNDAY and will not play over the long weekend. There is no play on the Monday of the long weekend holiday.

1st Grade is at Coogee Oval. Tom Jagot will make his debut with the club as 1st Grade Capped Player no.95 and we wish him well for the season ahead. He has played eight 1st Grade matches for Uni. NSW. At 18 years of age, Tom will be one of seven players under 23 in the 1st Grade team. Look at these youngsters: Jake Scicluna (19); Soumil Chhibber (19); Nathan Ellis (20); Shaun Eaton (20); Daniel Sams (21) and Nick Stapleton (22). This must be the youngest 1st Grade team in Sydney and is the second youngest for the club behind last year’s side when we fielded seven under 22 with six of those under 21.

We have won our last five matches against Campbelltown who haven’t beaten us since 2008-09. Overall our record is 8 wins; 5 losses and one draw. What will be interesting is to see if Jake Wilson can get a lift up the batting order following his record score of 131 during his season in the Old Dart!

2nd Grade is at Raby 1 Oval on Sat/Sun. John McLoughlin is the new skipper and brings a wealth of experience into the side and needs just 52 runs to bring up 5,000 for the club. Alex Sciascia needs just two games to bring up 200 while James Tyson needs one wicket to bring up 200 and seven more to bring up 150 in 2nd Grade. The results in this grade against The Ghosts are quite fascinating with 4 wins to 2 but with 5 draws!

3rd Grade plays at Petersham Oval. The club’s most successful all-rounder Rod Stafford with 332 wickets and 2,348 runs takes over as captain. It’s 3-all in our 10 clashes with The Ghosts in this grade. We finished 12th last year while they finished 16th. Ours looks a strong bowling unit.

4th Grade is at Raby 2 Oval on Sat/Sun. David Bourke leads the side in his 204th game for the club and his 126th in 4th Grade. Nigil Singh needs 8 wickets to get to 350 for the club. We lost to Campbelltown last season for the first time, beaten by 5 wickets on this ground. We have 5 wins over them. We finished 7th last season and they came in 8th. Should be a close game.

5th Grade plays at Kensington Oval. Jason McLean who did so well with a young team the last two seasons lines up again as skipper. This is our most successful team having made the finals 10 times in our 13 years. Outstanding stuff! This will be a good match as we finished 6th last season just one spot behind The Ghosts in 5th. There’s some great talent in the side while they have the added bonus of two of the most experienced plyers in the club in Chris Singh and Grant Rimmer who needs just 3 wickets to bring up 100 in this grade. The record against Campbelltown in 4 wins each plus a tie.

Metropolitan Cup. RP GREEN v Fairfield at Marrickville Oval the next two SATURDAYS while RP GOLD v UNSW at David Phillips South the next two SUNDAYS. Bala Mohan captains the Greens and Lasith Fernando skippers the Gold. There’s oodles of young talent in these sides this season so we can expect some good performances and a bit of pressure put on players in the higher grades.

Golf: Don’t forget the Phil Tresidder Memorial Golf Day at Beverley Park Golf Course on Friday 17 October. It’s our first ‘Legends” function so get your team in now!

Best of luck to everyone for the 2014-15 season. Go the Randy Petes!!

Lyall Gardner

This weeks preview is brought to you by our friends at Sydney City Toyota.

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