Throw Back Thursday – Lyall’s Preview Round 7 vs Easts

It’s the local derby as we take on Easts in a series of one-day matches next Saturday 20 December.

Preview Round 7 v Eastern Suburbs

It’s the local derby as we take on Easts in a series of one-day matches next Saturday 20 December.  Matches start at 10 am. This is the last round before Christmas. Grade rounds resume on Saturday 10 January with a series of one-day limited overs matches against Sydney University.

And congratulations to club stalwart Grant Rimmer who notched up his 300th wicket last week, joining Nigil Sigh, Rod Stafford and Chris Singh in the “300 Club”. He also passed 100 wickets in 5th Grade this season while he has 99 in 4th Grade and 54 in 3rds.

Club Championship: Saints got the better of the points last Saturday taking 72 to our 48 and going ahead of us into 4th place by 24 points. Manly however, had a blinder against Wests taking a massive 132 points and streaking away to a handy lead by 48 over Sutherland. Our PG boys did well on Sunday and their 28 points helped increase our total to 422. We are now in 5th place but are 92 behind Manly. Easts are 6th and on our hammer just 10 points behind. Our A W Green Shield boys start this Thursday 18th and they could help our Club Championship chances with some good wins which are worth 18 points each.

1st Grade is at Waverley Oval. This is also the start of the 1st Grade Limited Overs competition which this season has just four rounds. Apart from Easts we play Sydney University, Mosman and Gordon in the competition which will be over by 24 January. In the Belvidere Cup, we are equal SECOND on 24 points with Bankstown but THIRD on quotient behind Manly who have a handy 8 points lead. Manly and us are the only UNDEFEATED teams so far. Easts are 10th. We have played Easts 17 times over the years and results have been in batches. We won the first four. Easts won the next seven including the 2003-04 1st Grade Grand Final; a draw followed in 2010-11 but we have won the past five matches including two T20 games this season. Nathan Price needs 5 runs for 2,500; Shaun Eaton needs 7 for 1,000; and Nick Stapleton needs 10 for 2,000. Shattering news about Usman Khawaja suffering a knee injury which will keep him out of cricket for the remainder of the season. And today is his birthday!

2nd Grade is at Petersham Oval. A disappointment to go down to St George last Saturday with the last man at the crease as the result meant that we are now 6th with Saints on top. Had we got the last man out before they reached our score we would be leading! It’s a close competition and we are well in it! Easts are 9th and on 18 points the same as us so this will be a tight game. Historically Easts have a 5 to 4 win margin over us.

3rd Grade plays at Trumper Park. Last week’s nine wicket loss was the third time 3rd Grade has lost by that margin and the second time in two seasons. We are 13th on 9 points while Easts are in 3rd spot on 24. However, they have only ever beaten us once in this grade and that was 5 years ago in 2008-09. We have 7 wins against them. Skipper Rod Stafford now has 2,477 runs for the club—just 23 short of another milestone!

4th Grade is at Coogee Oval. Congratulations to David Bourke who passed the 4,000 runs milestone last game. This team has a great record against Easts winning 8 out of 10 although the Dolphins won last year by 5 wickets at Petersham Oval (96 to 5-101). They are 7th this season and we are 14th.

5th Grade plays at Kensington Oval. After last week’s big win we are 3rd on 18 points but 7th on quotient. Easts are 11th on 12. We defeated Easts in this grade seven times in our first eight clashes although they have won the past two. This gives us a 7-3 win ratio and a chance to expand on that this weekend.

Metropolitan Cup. This week the big game comes to town as the boys goes to beautiful Coogee by the sea to do Sunday battle mate against mate. Adam Lee’s Golden youngsters take on the seasoned Greens led by Luis Siddall filling in for regular skip Bala Mohan who has gone to India searching for a suitable wife. Its limited overs so someone will come away with 6 big ones. Gold has the pace of Omair Ali and skip Lee but their spin attack looks like it holds the key. Leggie Kyri Tsalakidis is the leading metro bowler and is supported by offie Liam O’Loughlin and ambidextrous Niv Radakrishnan. The batting will need big performances from Adam Pustetto, Ed House and Lasith Fernando. The Greens have years of experience on Gold and boast that their batting strength will prevail. George Frazakis, Sean Rushton, Arman Nawaz and Saurov Barua are the mainstays of their batting line-up and are looking to give the Golds a long day in the field. Gold look to have a big edge in the fielding department and that might just determine the winner. Champion scorer Richard McCord looks set to make his long awaited return from injury which adds that bit of extra prestige to the match.

Randwick Petersham Masters (Over 40’s) play Georges River Masters THIS SUNDAY at Kensington Oval from 12.30pm: An important game for us for a number of reasons. 1. If we can win this one it should cement our position in the top four. 2. It’s a local derby as we are the only two teams from the south side and as you can imagine there will be “huge bragging rights” on offer for the winners. We hope that some local club support can make its way down to Kenso on Sunday and help cheer on the Randy Petes Masters team. Our squad for Sunday is: J Mesar (capt.), D Smith (v-c), M Wall, F Heaton, D Parker, M Singh, G Scott, S Beck, A Malouf, J Hourn, R Bryant.

Lyall Gardner