From the Convenor of Cricket, John McCallum
The new Cricket season has begun with great promise and enthusiasm from Waverley’s cricketers, with positive signs already emerging. It is great to see the trial process and first games underway in such a positive fashion, with boys sharing roles, encouraging each other and developing great team relationships. This itself is the core goal of our sport, while the skill development has been impressive in our early weeks of training, with coaches and boys identifying their strengths and weaknesses in order to take further steps forward.
A new generation of talented Cricketers are emerging, showcasing some fantastic batting already in early matches, including:
- A maiden century to Hirav Gandhi, Yr8, in the 2nds against St Patricks, striking 101 not out including 16 from the final over and becoming the youngest centurian on Queens Park 1 in over 15 years!
- Two Half-centuries to Jack Rigg and a 76 from William Dodd to see the 10As defeating Trinity.
- Edward Regan in Yr9 scoring a classy 55 in his 1st XI debut in saving a collapse to see the 1sts post 155 against Barker. Maxim Brooks, also in Yr9 smashed 51 from 44 balls in the 1sts Twenty20 victory over IZingari last week, while 1sts skipper Reid McNamara has posted two half-centuries already, as has Jack Hickey. Dylan Brown In the 1sts and Ed Sullivan in the 3rds, are also in the runs with half-centuries, bringing the total of a dozen scores above 50 in just the first few weeks!
The Cricket program for this year aims to give boys great opportunities to develop their games and includes:
- Additional small group batting sessions available to all boys in the “Batting Club” sessions each Thursday morning – 7am at Senior school nets
- Senior to Junior coaching and mentoring program about to launch, involving 1sts and 2nds Cricketers with Mentoring Yr 7 boys, and coaching in Junior school Sessions
- Additional specialist skills sessions from coaching partners from Pro Performance Cricket, and Waverley’s Mr John Boyd
- Sports psychology sessions for Senior Cricketers, assisting boys in understanding the power of their mental processes such as positive mindsets and imagery, anxiety control, goal setting and focus in sport. This is a better use of their greatest resource in Cricket, and shape their thoughts and language to improve performance.
Best of luck to all teams this weekend, with Waves to Win!
