Sydney University take out First Grade Final

Monday, April 4, 2011

Sydney University are the 2010-11 Premiers after defeating Randwick-Petersham in a pulsating First Grade Cricket Final yesterday at Blacktown Olympic Park.


The match was a superb advert for club cricket as Randwick-Petersham won the toss and sent Sydney University in to bat on Friday. At 7-99 midway through the day it looked like a great decision, before Scott Henry (132) and James Crowley (50) combined for a 165 run partnership for the 8th wicket. This enabled Sydney University to recover to 282 all out just before lunch on day two.


In response Randwick-Petersham opener Damian Wall (67) was superb as he counter-attacked, and with Simon Katich helped lift the score to 5-182 at stumps requiring a further 101 runs to win on the final day.


Katich was the key, but when he drove Mail to cover without adding to his overnight score of 53, it was going to require a mighty effort to win.


The tail, unfortunately, could not create the miracle, despite some big hitting from Alex Graham (23) and when Mail found the edge of Graham's bat for Moran to take the catch at second slip, Sydney University had emerged victorious by 54 runs. With not enough overs left to push for an outright victory, the match ended 30 minutes before lunch.


Henry was named Benaud Medallist as Player of the Match with his superb hundred, while Greg Mail's 5-30 in the Final took him to 32 wickets for the season and made him just the second player to have two seasons with both 1000 runs and 30 wickets. Mail finished the season with 1095 runs and 32 wickets, while the previous season he had scored 1266 runs and taken 37 wickets. The other player to do this was Bill Alley for Northern District in 1942-43, Alley scored 1026 runs and took 39 wickets, and in 1943-44, for Petersham, he scored 1413 runs and took 57 wickets. Grant Lambert has performed the feat once (1527 / 46) for Fairfield-Liverpool in 2006-07.


For more information on this event please contact Cricket NSW 8302 6000.

Media Contact :
Ros Pullen - Media & Marketing Officer - Blacktown International Sportspark Sydney - 9839 6595
Karla Wyatt - Promotions Assistant - Blacktown International Sportspark Sydney - 9839 6593