History of Randwick Petersham Cricket
Est. 2001
TRUST RESPECT HUMILITY
In the Beginning…
Randwick Petersham Cricket Club came into being on 19 July 2001 when two of Sydney’s oldest and most successful cricket clubs, Randwick and Petersham-Marrickville, decided to amalgamate.
Sporting its new colours of green, gold and white, a combination of the colours of both founding clubs, Randwick Petersham first took the field as a grade club on 29 September 2001 at Petersham Oval in a 1st Grade match against University of New South Wales. Petersham Oval and Coogee Oval would thereafter rotate through each season as the club’s 1st Grade ground.
In 2007-08, its seventh season, Randwick Petersham proved the value of the merger by taking out the NSW Premier Cricket Club Championship after finishing no further back than seventh in five of its first six years. In 2010-11, the club confirmed its position as one of Sydney’s top clubs by again taking out the Club Championship. In its 22 years, the club has finished in the top 10 on 13 occasions and 10 times in the top seven.
Randwick Petersham has shown itself to be one of Sydney’s most consistent performers winning competition premierships in 1st Grade, 2nd Grade, 3rd Grade, 4th Grade (three times), 5th Grade (three times), the under 21 years Poidevin-Gray and the Metropolitan Cup. It has also been three times runner–up in the 1st Grade Belvidere Cup competition. The 1st Grade team has also won the Limited Overs competition and the Twenty20 Cup competition three times each. In the three years from 2020, the team won the Belvidere Cup, the Limited Overs Cup and the Twenty20 Cup. It has contested the 1st Grade finals series 10 times in its 22 years history.
Greg “Prince” Hartshorne is one of the Club’s most successful seasons with 3 consecutive premierships in 4th Grade, 3rd Grade and 2nd Grade between 2002-03 and 2004-05.
Randwick Petersham has established itself as a supplier of quality first-class cricketers with Simon Katich, Nathan Hauritz, Usman Khawaja and David Warner representing Australia and NSW. David Warner played his 100th Test Match in 2022-23 and was also a member of Australia’s Twenty20 squads of 2021 and 2022. Daniel Sams was a member of the successful World Cup squad in 2021. Burt Cockley, Scott Coyte, Daniel Sams, Jason Sangha and Riley Ayre have also worn the baggy blue cap of NSW. Simon Katich captained NSW for seven seasons between 2002 and 2010 while Jason Sangha became the club’s second State captain in 2021-22. Sams and Sangha both represented Sydney Thunder in the Big Bash League with Sangha captaining the side in 2021-22 and 2022-23.
The club has also been represented at the Australia and NSW under 15s, 17s and 19s level, NSW Second XI and Futures League while Jason Sangha has twice played for the Prime Minister’s XI against touring teams. In 2017-18, Jason Sangha captained the Australian under 19 team, making the final of the World Cup competition in New Zealand. He also made a century for Cricket Australia against the England Ashes team in Townsville—the second youngest in cricket history to do so since Sachin Tendulkar.
Randwick Petersham has also been represented by 10 players in the Big Bash League while six members of the club have represented NSW in the National Indigenous Imparja Cup/Cricket Championships competitions.
Furthermore, since 2014/15 the Club has established a succesful partnership with Cricket Ireland via the Official Overseas Scholarship Programme and has been the summer home of Andrew Balbirnie, Barry McCarthy, Stephen Doheny, Scott Macbeth and the Tector brothers – Jack, Harry & Tim.
The formation of Randwick Petersham through the merger of Randwick CC (1900-2001) and Petersham-Marrickville DCC (1951-2001) effectively created a club which rewrote the history books. Considering Petersham-Marrickville DCC was the result of an amalgamation in 1951 between Petersham DCC (1899-1951) and Marrickville DCC (1910-1951), the collective lifespan of each of the four foundation clubs together with the 22 seasons of Randwick Petersham to the end of 2022-23 represents a total of 261 cricket playing years. This number is well in excess of the 236 years history of the MCC at Lord’s which was founded in 1787 leaving Randwick Petersham with an undeniable claim to be the oldest cricket club in the world.
