Rounds 1 and 2 Edition Welcome to the new 2020-21 season, albeit a little different to the “Norm”. Due to the Covid situation only our 1st and 2nd Grade teams were able to start in the final week in September. The rest start at the end of this Oct. It’s a big year for the club as we begin our Centenary celebrations for First Grade. 100 years of First Grade Cricket for the most successful club in the NSW Premier Cricket competition. Let’s hope our lads can have a great season although luck has well and truly been against them so far. In the meantime we’ll keep you posted on all the celebration activities we have planned over the next 18 months. Once again we take the opportunity to thank all of you for your support, particularly our sponsors. If you haven’t already signed up to become a member for this season, you can do so online - https://st-george-district-cricket-club.square.site/ The idea of this newsletter is to keep our supporters and sponsors up to date with how our teams performed in each round so let’s get on to it. FIRST GRADE Our Firsts trained the house down in the off season in preparation for a good start to the season. However the team lost the hugely talented batsman Blake Nikitaris just prior to the season starter with a serious knee injury which sadly looks like it may see Blake out for the whole season. Round 1 saw the boys taking on a strong Penrith unit at Penrith with the Saints batting first in a 50 over one dayer. The boys batted fantastically to put on 6-274 with Kaleb Phillips top scoring with a punishing 94 off 84 balls. The innings included 6 boundaries and 5 sixes. He was ably supported by Jono Rose with 63. St George seemed to be in control for much of the Penrith innings however a late cameo from BBL player Josh Lalor who scored 45 from 21 balls helped Penrith to victory with just two balls to spare. Tom Engelbrecht was superb with 2-29 from his 10 overs. Round two saw them up against the highly touted Manly side with the added bonus of having three of the big four available to play, Trent Copeland, Moises Henriques and Kurtis Patterson Keen to win the toss on Day One at Manly Oval, unfortunately skipper Nick Stapleton lost the toss and the strong line up took to field first. The first session saw a nice even contest with Henriques claiming a couple of crucial wickets and Copeland keeping the flow of runs down. A couple of very solid middle order partnerships saw Manly consolidate, however a late flurry of wickets saw the Saints keep things from getting out of control as Manly finished all out for 383 from 95.4 overs. Peter Francis and Nick Satpleton shared the honours with 3- 58 and 3-62 respectively. On a very good wicket and with one of the strongest Saints batting line ups all was set for a rivetting 2nd Saturday before terrible luck struck and the NSW threesome were pulled out of the game to go into an early Sheffield Shield “bubble” for their campaign in Adelaide. Sadly the Saints batting line up never got going with former Australian cricketer Steve O’Keefe running through the Saints with figures of 6-36. The skipper Stapleton held the fort with a gutsy 62 not out as St George were dismissed for a dissapointing 165. Redemption was available the following day at Drummoyne Oval against Sydney as the Saints began their Kingsgrove Sports T20 Cup campaign. Sydney got off to a brilliant start with the experienced Justin Mosca scoring 100 off 62 balls setting up the daunting but gettable score of 7-187. Once again the Saints tied up the innings end with a bundle of cheap wickets. Stapleton once again led the way with 4-21 off his 4 overs. Sadly it was a similar tale in the batting department as the Saints lost some early wickets to find themselves on the back foot for the remainder of the innings. The positive to come out was the innings from Saints new boy, Wicket Keeper, Tom Vane Tempest from the ACT who finished with 42 from 24 balls. The Saints were all out in the 18th over for 110. Find us on Insta ! SECOND GRADE Our 2nds were brilliant in Round 1 with a strong win over Penrith. Bowling first at Hurstville Oval the Saints restricted The Panthers to just 7-171 off their 50 overs with Mitch Gray the stand out claiming 3-18 off his 10 overs. The Saints managed to pass The Panthers with almost 10 overs to spare with Matt Hopkins dominating the innings with 86 not out. He was ably supported by captain Chris MacDougal with a solid 38. Speaking of dominating, that is exactly what Matt Hopkins did in Round 2 against Manly. Batting for 262 minutes and facing 209 balls, Hopkins compiled a masterful 165. This included 27 boundaries. There were plenty of usefull starts including 43 from Jono Rose, 49 from Kurt Chalker and 41 not out from Jono Craig Dobson. The Saints declaring at 9-395 in order to have a late arfternon crack at the Manly top order. They held firm finishing the day without losing a wicket. A big tussle likely on Day 2. With the Saints losing 3 players after it’s State players were ordered to go into an earlier Sheffield Shield quarantine the Saints welcomed 3 new players into the line up. Manly had a number of promising early order partnerships but the Saints kept battling away. Later in the day when the fielding began to let them down with a number of dropped catches Saints stalwart Andrew Walsh stood tall with a couple of great catches and a big spell that saw him finish with 4-36 off 20 overs. Saints 2nd grade are building from the great season in 2019-20 to go 2 wins from 2 games. https://www.facebook.com/stgeorgecricket/ POIDEVIN-GRAY SHIELD Our Under 21’s got their campaign off to a successful start with a win against Sydney in the curtain raiser to the First Grade T20 at Drummoyne Oval. Bowling first they contained Sydney to 6-107 from their 20 overs with captain Josh Moors leading the way with 2-21. Raf MacMillan, captain for our Green Shield U16’s, showed his potential with 1-10 off his 4 overs and the experienced Kaleb Phillips was also miserly with 1-11 from his 4. It was at times a shaky run chase with the loss of regular wickets but a handy 36 from 42 balls from opener Kurt Chalker supported by Ben Panayotopoulos (27 from 23) paved the way for the Saints to claim a crucial victory with 2 overs to spare. PHOTO GALLERY Matt Hopkins on his way to 165 in Round 2. Matt has already scored 302 runs @ an average of 151. Andrew Walsh celebrates another crucial wicket as he claimed 4-36 to set up the victory against Manly. New player Tom McKenzie celebrates the final wicket to seal victory in 2nd Grade in Rd 2. Images by @cricketfella GREEN SHIELD Congrats to the following lads who have been selected in the St George DCC Green Shield U16 team – Matthew Adam, Edward Anderson, Billy Arena, Shuvayu Banerjee, James Brown, Blake Faunce, Thomas Forrester, Rafael MacMillan, Alexander Parthenis, Tomas Phelps, Thomas Porter, Taran Shah, Ethan Simpson, Victor Strange, Krish Surana Train-On: Ashwin Sathiyaseelan Congratulations to the team on successfully winning the annual Brian Booth Cup against Western Zone in Gulgong. St George posted 187 with Ethan Simpson top scoring with 62 supported by Blake Faunce with 34. Western Zone were dismissed for 166 with Taran Shah claiming 3-21 and Matthew Adam 3-24. They played a trial match the following day against Penrith and were convincing winners with Penrith all out for 118. In reply St George posted 5-222 off 40 overs. Runs were shared by Parthenis 51 ret. Strange 39, McMillan 35, Forrester 31 ret, Phelps 22no and Simpson 18no. FROM CRICKET SYDNEY We catch up with former St George allrounder and current Tasmania and Hobart Hurricanes representative Nathan Ellis. See the full interview at CRICKET SYDNEY .