2008-09 - University of New South Wales Cricket Club

UNSW Cricket Club Annual ReportSecond Grade ReportSECOND GRADE REPORTIt was certainly a difficult season for the 2nd grade side. At times we built some good pressure withthe ball however this was a rare occurrence with the bat, our main down falling.A number of explanations and observations can be made about the batting.Not once did we have a settled batting order. Reasons – movement between the grades(understandable), unavailability, searching for the right combination. The latter I feel was mainly dueto the lack of genuine top order batsmen at the club. This was reflected in our abysmal averagepartnerships for the 1st, 2nd and 3rd wicket (11.71, 16.38, and 11.81 respectively). This certainly didnot give the middle order a huge amount of momentum or a platform to build a competitive score.There were some talented stroke players in the middle order in Ben Wakim and Ryan Medley whoboth had sporadic success. Charlie Wakim showed he is a genuine class act with the bat in the fewgames he was available; he is certainly one to be nurtured for future 1st grade cricket. Angus Robsonand James McNeil both showed they had the temperament for batsmanship. Both need time in 2ndgrade to churn out the runs before being thrown into 1st grade. Although James batted down theorder on his few appearances he certainly looks like he has the technique and steely determination tomake it at the top of the order.To take a closer look at the dismissals of batsmen we rarely looked like we had the patience to build along innings. With the exception of Angus, we did not have the patience to leave the ball outside offearly on in our innings. Therefore it would be fair to say that poor shot selection is what caused thefall of many of our wickets. This is particularly disappointing as this suggests it was our mentalpreparation or poor game plans that caused our wickets rather than lack of ability. However at othertimes we were certainly outclassed by stronger opposition, a reflection of the lack of experiencedbatsmen in the side. This suggests that the young batsmen with genuine first grade potential shouldbe identified and given extended opportunities in the natural batting positions in order to develop asplayers and/or the recruitment of some ‘older heads’ is required to guide the youngsters and providesome stability.Our lack of runs always left the bowlers up against it. The experience, and hence ability to hit thesame ‘spot’ of Chris Thomas proved very useful when he was available: as was the experience andpace of Eric Zehner towards the end of the season. Mark Appleton bowled well at times with aseason average of 26.36. However, we lacked depth in the seam bowling department with our seambowlers lacking the penetration and consistency required for 2nd grade cricket. We were blessed inthe spin bowling department. Josh Webb’s off spin was the pick of the bowling (24 wickets at 24.62).He spun the ball hard with good flight and certainly has the potential to do a job in 1st grade. RyanMedley, when he found his rhythm, proved to be dangerous with excellent flight and dip.What really let the bowlers down and is arguably inexcusable was our poor fielding, especially ourpoor conversion rate of chances into catches. There were numerous occasions where 4 or 5 catcheswent down in a game. I identified the main culprits to be either those who did not attend practiceoften (or at all) or those who failed to dedicate enough time to their fielding when at practice. A lot ofthis comes down to players taking responsibility for their own game at practice. I believe if this hadbeen done at practice our conversion rate of chances would have been a lot higher. If the player stockswere higher I would have no hesitation in dropping players whose attendance rate at practice is poor.There is certainly a case for doing this anyway.The highlight of the season was obviously our win against Randwick Petersham, Man of the Matchbeing Chris Thomas with 4 for 13 on return from injury. I believe we could have had more successwith this group of players had our application with the bat been slightly more disciplined and ourcommitment to practice all aspects of our game been higher.STEVEN GILMOURSeason 2008/2009 Page 39