Lyall’s Preview Round 14 v Sydney Uni and Metro Cup
This round we are up against Sydney University in the 5 grades. The 4 lowers all play a one-day match on Saturday while 1st Grade play over both Saturday and Sunday. In Metro Cup, RP Gold plays Bankstown at Snape while RP Green plays NWS Hurricanes Maroon at Castlewood. Both Metro matches are on Saturday.
Our wins in 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th grades last Saturday were just the tonic we needed for a boost in our Club Championship ranking.
We are now in 8th place—the highest position we have been all season. With 916 points, we are just 40 behind 6th placed Western Suburbs. They will be our target now. If we can gather them in over these final 3 rounds, we could take 6th spot. Manly is 5th but 159 points ahead of us. They would have to crash while we would just about have to win everything to reel them in. The issue will come to a head this weekend as Sydney University is running 2nd on a whopping 1,251 points. A good time to hit form.
Our 1st XI is now in 3rd place on the competition ladder with 53 points–20 ahead of 12th placed Sydney University. There have been some real battles over the years, so this is an important match for both clubs. The dark horse for us is 4th Grade which is just 4 points from 6th in 8th place after 3 wins in a row. Sydney Uni. will be tough though, as they are running 2nd. There will be some good cricket required in the other grades with 2nds in 9th place while Uni. is on top. In 3rd Grade we are 16 and Uni 6th while in 5s, we are 14th and the students 12th. 5ths haven’t beaten them since 2018-19.
What a weekend for the club last week! The big win over Gordon in the Limited Overs Cup semi-final gave us a place in the Grand Final against Parramatta on Sunday 23 February with the venue yet to be advised. This will be our 6th appearance in a LO Cup Grand Final, winning twice. Keep the date free as will be keen to get as many supporters there as possible.
And of course, the big news was that on Sunday, Anthony Sams broke a 67-year-old wicketkeeping record which has stood since 1958. With 543 career dismissals he is now the new record holder for most wicketkeeping dismissals in Sydney 1st Grade Cricket–a competition which began in 1893-84. And on Saturday, he passed the 9,000 career runs milestone and extended it to 9,097 when he made 78 on Sunday—his 7th half-century this summer. He has also scored 622 this season.
There were many other features last round:
- Austin Waugh scored 117* on Saturday and 139 on Sunday to record 4 tons for the season–256 runs for once out over the weekend, taking his tally to 621 this summer. He is just the 4th player to score 4 centuries for the club in a season.
- Luke Callanan took the 8th hat-trick in 1st Grade knocking over 3 Gordon bats in successive balls in the LO semi last Sunday to finish with 3-30. It was also the 3rd hat-trick in a finals match–all at Coogee–and the second against Gordon.
- Waugh and Sams had partnerships of 84* for the 4th wicket on Saturday and 151 for the 3rd on Sunday–235 in total.
- Anthony Sam’s 50* v UNSW was scored in just 23 balls and contained 6 fours and 3 sixes.
- Riley Ayre took his 98th catch in 1st Grade.
- 2nd Grade’s score of 3-352 to pass UNSW’s 8d-347 was the team’s greatest chase-to-win performance.
- Ash Burton (112) and Ross Elliot (113) were the 6th pair to score a century in the same innings in 2nd Grade.
- The opening partnership of 195 by Burton and Elliot was just 7 short of the 2nd Grade record of 202 set in 2010-11.
- In 3rd Grade, Adam Docos opened the batting and was dismissed for 78, one run after the winning run was scored.
- Adam Docos took 6 catches in the innings—the most by any 3rd Grade wicketkeeper.
- In 3rd Grade, Toby Mackenzie took 3-30 (14), held 2 catches then scored 11* out of 47 for the 8th wicket, to win.
- In 4th Grade, Kaden Warner took his 3rd “5-for” with 5-34 off 21 overs while Rory Anderson ended with 4-20 off 16.
- With wickets tumbling around him, Josh Bird was the rock of the 4th Grade innings of 156, scoring 27 off 149 balls.
- A W Green Shield all-rounder Laurence Bennell took 3-34 (11) then scored 26 (67 balls) in the team’s loss.
- In Metro Green, Asif Rasheed scored 50 (54) and Kaylan Mantara 49 (103) in the 7 wickets win over Blacktown.
- A 97 runs partnership for the 9th wicket by Sydney University thwarted Metro Gold’s win prospects in the drawn match.
