From Behind the Stumps – Records broken by some Waverley Seniors

From Convenor of Cricket, John McCallum

The weekend in review

Waverley’s cricketers look forward to their summer break knowing they have worked hard in each of their teams, and enjoyed a great term of competition. The majority of players had their final matches against Barker last Saturday with impressive results, while our four 2-day teams play their last games this Friday and Saturday against Barker. The 1^st XI also play in a Twenty20 semi-final against Trinity next Monday, with the winner to match up with Barker in the Final. A highlight was a new College record partnership for the 10^th (last) wicket, with Ben Scarf (54 not out) and Harry Whiteman (25 not out) saving the Waverley 2^nd innings with a fantastic unbroken stand of 82 runs. This eclipsed a partnership record from 1986, so congratulations to these players for demonstrating such grit and determination to never give in.

Fantastic news also arrived on the weekend with Year 12 student Jason Sangha scoring 133 for the Cricket Australia XI against the touring England Ashes side in Townsville. Congratulations to Jason, who became the second-youngest player behind Sachin Tendulkar to score a century against England in first class cricket history. Only a fortnight after finishing his HSC at Waverley, Jason is already having a huge season and we wish him all future success.

The young 8A side enjoyed their third successive victory after bowling Barker our cheaply for 89. Ryland Short took three early scalps before Ed Regan took another six wickets, after doing the same the previous week! Maxim Brooks led the chase with 33 runs to ensure a four wicket win, while Will Heffernan starred with 47 not out in the 8B loss to Barker.

Both the 9A and 10A sides were left disappointed their 1^st innings total wasn’t higher against Trinity. Despite Leo Shanahan batting well in the 10As, Conor Boyd-Boland scoring 49 and Sam Connolly 47 in the 9As, Trinity built a lead in both matches before Waverley showed improvement in their second innings. Alex Robertson showed some fight in the 10A innings, and Jack Hickey and Murray Shearer enjoyed an unbeaten 82- run stand.  Darcy Mullins and Ridley Owens batted well in the 2^nd XI’s first innings, and Max Towns sent plenty of balls to the boundary in an entertaining knock in the 3rds, and Dexter Craddock did likewise for the 8C team. Jesse Sonego top-scored for the 9Bs with 33, and Noah Gilmore took three key wickets in their victory at Queens Park.

Thank you to all players and coaches for their enthusiasm and great work this term. I also want to thank parents for the support of their sons, and for assisting in areas like scoring or helping in our Queens Park kiosk.

1^st XI Report from Friday / Saturday v Trinity

From Coaches John Boyd and Greg Elliott

Waverley won the toss and elected to bat. The start was the disastrous with both openers back in the shed without a run on the board. That set the tone for the afternoon as wickets tumbled, unfortunately one of those Alex Ferrara, off the 7^th ball of a six ball over. Jacob Tomasiello and Reid McNamara looked to be forming a partnership but a silly run out saw Reid out and this eventually left Jacob Tomasiello not out batsman. The only batsman to really trouble the scorers was Jack Hardwicke-Owen with 28 out of a total of 119.

Trinity had one hour and fifteen minutes to bat and Waverley was unlucky not to make a breakthrough in the early overs with some good bowling from Benjamin Scarf. Trinity had 28 on the board when Ryan Connolly made the breakthrough. This brightened the spirits but some solid and sometimes lucky hitting by Australian U-17 player Liam Scott saw the score rocket along and at stumps Trinity had moved to within range of the Waverley total at 1 for 93.

Day two had Waverley struggling for wickets to restrict the Trinity team posting a big total to push for an outright win. A wicket with the score on 113 gave some hope however the score was passed and Trinity set about posting a big lead. Harry Whitaker and Benjamin Scarf both bowled well with Harry Whitaker picking up two wickets, Scarf also claimed two and was unlucky not have more as catches were dropped and decisions not given. Trinity finally declared at the lunch break at 6 for 266, a lead of 147.

After the break the hope of a positive batting display slowly slipped away as the Waverley batsmen succumbed to the Trinity barrage. However, with three batsmen falling to short deliveries that need not have been played, Waverley was giving the outright loss away far too easily. The 9^th wicket fell with Waverley still 20 runs adrift and hope looked lost as there was one hour and fifteen minutes still to play. Benjamin Scarf and Harry Whiteman began the rear-guard action, a little shaky at first and a run out should have ended the game but luckily for Waverley a wild throw from a couple of meters missed the stumps. The pair then settled and defended stoutly taking every single, with Benjamin Scarf farming the strike when he could. The time was ticking away as the totals drew level at the final drinks break. This mean that Trinity would now need to bat a second time if one the two batsmen lost their wicket. The frustration was very evident on the faces of the Trinity team as Benjamin Scarf began to open his shoulders and set about increasing the Waverley lead. Before going to the crease Ben made the comment that he was going to break the partnership record for the final wicket. This record was set in 1986 with and unbroken total of 76 runs. Both batsmen now looked set and the as the partnership reached 50 a memorable day was taking shape.

Benjamin Scarf passed the 50 mark but this went unnoticed as the team was engrossed hoping that the pair could reach the record mark. The singles kept coming and with the odd boundary the 76 mark was reached, very next ball a shot behind point saw the batsmen get through for two runs to break the record. One further over was bowled before stumps were drawn with Waverley now 60 runs ahead and having fought off an outright loss. The batting in this game lacked patience and commitment. The team move to Barker for the last round before Christmas this Friday / Saturday and a big batting improvement is needed to get back in the winning way and hopefully have other results go our way to narrow the gap again on Trinity.