Randwick Petersham Cricket Round 1 Recap 2022/23

Season 2022/23 is officially underway, and it was a tough weekend across the board for the Randy Petes.

With just one win out of five games against North Sydney coming in 3rd Grade, it will be back to the drawing board ahead of two-day fixtures against Campbelltown in Round 2.

Metro Cup restored some order on Sunday, with wins for both Green and Gold.

#147 Manish Malhotra 1s debut

Lefand Group 1st Grade @ Coogee Oval

North Sydney 2/161 def. RPC 8/182 (Singh 61*)

Losing the toss on what seemed to be a tricky deck, we were sent in to bat. North Sydney’s decision to send us in paid dividends as they had us 7/85 at one stage.

Ashley Burton joined Daya Singh at the crease and the two combined for a 90 run partnership (Singh 61* and Burton 32). Ryan Ninan came to the crease and hit a six off his first ball to leave Randwick-Petersham a modest 182 to defend. Incredibly, on a slow outfield, we hit more sixes (7) than fours (3).

The boys made a steady start in the second innings and had the visitors 2/69 as the scores were very tight according to Mr Duckworth and Mr Lewis when we came off for rain. Unfortunately the conditions changed when we went back out onto the field as boundaries were hit with ease with the outfield quickening.

North Sydney would finish on 2/161 and won comfortably on DLS.

The skipper on his way to resurrecting the innings with 61*

Suttons 2nd Grade @ Bon Andrews Oval

North Sydney 8/242 (Montedoro 2/30 Pathak 2/40) def. RPC 110 (Montedoro 36)

Randwick won the toss on a green wicket and elected to bowl at Bon Andrews Arena. The Bears got off to a good start in the power play, passing 50 without losing a wicket as Randwick failed to bowl the fuller length required in the conditions.

Dave Dubey and James ‘Melbourne Storm’ Widerstrom entered the attack and bowled better areas, each troubling the batsman off the wicket. Shivansh Pathak (2/40 off 10) was the standout bowler, bowling his 10-straight overs through the middle. It could easily have been four wickets for Shivansh had it not been for costly dropped catches.

Ben Montedoro (2/30) bowled well at the death in a challenging scenario with set batsman at the crease, also picking up a couple of wickets. The Bears ended their innings on 242, scoring 81 off the last 11 overs.

With the bat, RPC never looked likely as North Sydney bowled the lines and lengths spoken about at the beginning of the day, extracting plenty of deviation from the wicket. Only Ben Montedoro dug in, scoring 36 before being out stumped.

We look on to next week against the Ghosts hoping to put a better performance in all areas on the board.

Ben Montedoro with 36

Petersham RSL 3rd Grade @ Petersham Oval

RPC 2/73 (Narval 25) def. North Sydney 69 (Tracey 3/11 Chandar 2/10 Murdita 2/11)

RPC 3^rd Grade arrived at Petersham Oval and elected to bowl first after the winning the toss. The decision proved to be a good one with Dane Coombs (1-11 off 6) picking up a wicket with his first ball, while Sadeep Deepak (1-9 off 6) struck in his second over. The two set the tone for the morning with a great spell, bowling very well in tandem and building the pressure up on the Bears batsmen.

Ben Chaplin (1-16 off 3) and Jaya Murdita (2-11 off 3) continued our momentum in picking up some key breakthroughs in the top and middle order, and were followed up by Guru Chandar (2-10 off 8) and club debutant Ben Tracey (3-11 off 7.2) as they spun a web to claim the remaining 5 wickets as the Bears limped to a paltry score of 69.

Our bowling was always consistent and asked questions of the batsmen every over and was fantastically supported by all players in the field, in particular club debutant Ryan Lynch who was very tidy behind the stumps and was awarded with two catches. 

Mellick Wealth 4th Grade @ Tunks Park

North Sydney 5/106 (Apostolakis 2/14 Singh 2/17) def. RPC 9/149 (Apostolakis 56 Segal 37)

After a delayed start at Tunks Park, RPC won the toss and elected to bat first in skipper Nigel Singh’s 250th game for the club. Things couldn’t have started any worse for the visitors, losing 4/12 early as our entire top-order crumbled.

Jordan Segal (37) and Jackson Dodd (25) were able to steady the ship in the middle-order and help get some runs on the board through the middle overs, before lower-order bat James Apostolakis (56) came to the crease and upped the scoring rate, helping the Randy Petes to a defendable score of 9/149 from 50 overs.

With some rain about in the afternoon, there were plenty of disruptions and a reduced total for North Sydney from 45 overs. Nigel Singh (2/17) and Apostolakis (2/14) both bowled well early on and put the Randy Petes in a strong position, before the Bears No.5 batsman came in and scored 67 – including two dropped catches in the outfield. With another rain delay late in the day and light fading, umpires called play for the day and with the DLS calculations, RPC lost the match by four runs in bitter fashion.

A tough way to the start the year, but a match that wasn’t without positives and the side will be looking for an improved display against the Ghosts in Round 2.

Jackson Dodd

Community Bank Clovelly Bendigo Bank Branch 5th Grade @ Kensington Oval

North Sydney 7/223 (Gibson 3/30) def. RPC 125 (Stirton 42*)

There was a delayed start at Kensington Oval due to one end of the run up area very wet. However, with both sides keen to get on the game was set to get underway at 10.30 and 47 overs for each side.

RPCC won the toss and decided to bowl on a wicket which looked damp and seemed like there would be plenty of assistance for the bowlers especially during the first session.

After a 1 minute silence by both teams as a mark of respect toward the Queen’s passing the game got underway.

The team welcomed James Stirton who was making his debut for the club and also Jacob McCormick who was playing his 1^st game in 5^th grade.

The RPCC bowlers were advised to pitch the ball up on the off stump or just back of a length and let the wicket do the rest. The catchers behind the wicket were asked to be particularly vigilant and to hold on to the edges that come by. Early wickets were important for RPCC to take advantage of the bowling first. It was also important to defend the short end of the boundary which was square of the wicket at the park end so bowlers were asked to not give the batsmen room to cut or pull towards this short end. Also, bowlers were reminded about the new rule where a “Free hit” will be awarded if a “no ball” is bowled.

Samarpreet Singh (0 for 38 off 7 overs) and Tom Gibson (3 for 33 of 9) opened the bowling for RPCC. Samarpreet bowling into a strong wind found things difficult and unfortunately for us struggled to find his rhythm. Sam was replaced by James Stirton (0 for 16 off 5 overs) who did a fine job to get through his overs and kept the ball upto the bat on a wicket that was difficult to drive on. Tom Gibson from the other end with the wind behind his back was bowling with great pace and fantastic lines. Tom was well rewarded with his debut Grade wicket with a fabulous unplayable delivery that took off from a good length that found the edge of the opener’s bat to be caught behind by Heaton. Tom was unfortunate not to bowl their number 3 batsman (who scored 109 runs) in his next 3 balls as he was comprehensively beaten by 3 repeated Yorkers that should have bowled him. Sam replaced Tom to bowl with the wind and tried hard to get us another wicket but it was just not his day.

Freddy Whalebone (2 for 47 off 9 overs) replaced Samarpreet and should have had more than the 2 wickets with a catch off the 1^st ball of his over floored and couple of edges finding the gaps. James was replaced by leg spinner Atharv Ramakanth (0 for 32 off 9 overs) bowling into the wind. Atharv bowled beautifully and spun the ball sharply beating both batsman several times and was unlucky not to get both wickets. Off spinner Daman Brar (2  for 44 off 7 overs) replaced Atharv and bowled to the plan and had his 2 wickets by bowling the batsmen through the gate. Jake Myers (0 for 8 off 1 over) also had a trundle.

Freddy and Tom bowled at the death and both bowlers did an awesome job for the team containing the UTS to 7 for 223.

With a reasonably big score to chase but good batting depth RPCC batsmen were asked to be vigilant in the opening 10 overs. With wickets in hand we could accelerate in the last 15 overs.

Freddy Whalebone (20) and Jake Myers (3) opened the innings. We lost Jake in the 3^rd over with the score on 8. Freddy was just beginning to dominate the bowling when he nicked a slow wide ball to be caught behind. RPCC 2 for 33 off 12 overs.

Then with an addition of only 20 runs RPCC lost 4 wickets, Jack Gibbens-Johnson (7 run out), Chaik Hathurusinghe (3), Jacob McCormick (7) and Daman Brar (0). James Stirton (42  not out) who came in at 5 was batting with ease and just needed a batsman to stay with him. Next in Fabian Heaton (12) and James consolidated the innings to not lose further wickets. After a rain interruption with the score on 72 and 25 overs gone the adjusted score to get according to the DLS was 177 in 39 overs. Which meant 105 runs in 14 overs. However, this target difficult when Fabian was out after 45 run partnership with James.

Atharv Ramkanth (11), Tom Gibson (5) and Samarpreet Singh (0) were unable to hang in the middle with James and RPCC were all out for 125 in 36.5 overs.

It was a disappointing loss and we definitely need to work more on our ground fielding and batting.

As a positive it was great to see young Tom Gibson impress with his bowling and new comer James Stirton looking solid batting and absolutely brilliant in the outfield with precision throwing in from the deep over the stumps and a fine high catch under pressure on the fence. Big season ahead for these 2.

Thank you to:

• Glen Standing for helping with the fielding drills and practical batting and bowing tips. Awesome!
• Belinda Gibson for helping out by picking up the score book from Coogee and then doing the scoring all day.  Hannah Gibson for taking over helping with the scoring in 2^nd half and then also assisting with taking off the covers. David Gibson for helping us with the covers and updating the scoreboard. Jack Gibson (ex randy petes player) for popping over to support the team. Really appreciate all the help Gibbo family!!
• Jeremy Jastrzab for helping put in the scores on PlayHq and others who came to support the team: Players parents, Alan Wright, Jay Patel, Sean Samson (ex top grade randy petes all rounder) and our top gun Scott Stirling.

Looking forward to getting many more wins to make up for this loss and make you all proud.

Chaik Hathurusinghe

Mr Taxman Metro Gold vs Georges River @ Petersham Oval

RPC 5/98 (Litchfield 30*) def. Georges River 96 (Khoo 4-23 M Tape 3-25)

Cartwright Insurances Metro Green vs Mosman @ Snape Park

RPC 5-201 (Syed 76 Beaumont 50) def. Mosman 159 (R Goyal 2-4 A Padavala 2-29 C Parthenis 2-41)