 4th Grade Annual Report
As I reflect upon the season just past, I am filled with a great amount of pride and joy as to how and what the Fourth Grade team achieved. We had to endure (with everyone else in Sydney) the wettest summer that I can remember and through it we achieved two great feats. The first one was making the finals for the first time since winning the Reid Cup in season 2004-2005 and the second was retaining the Mal Hall trophy (which Gordon has never relinquished) against Manly in the last round of the season!
Skipper Ahmed dominating the bowling attack at Killara
Even more remarkable was the fact that we had a number of different personnel who played in the team throughout the course of the year and never had a cohesive set of players until the final game of the season. It also didn’t help that I won only 4 tosses out of the 14 games that we played!
It was a tough start to the season for Fourth Grade as we went down in a close encounter to Penrith by 22 runs. However there were encouraging signs as Chad Soper and Blair Lindsay made their debuts for the club and impressed instantly.
Our fortunes changed dramatically in the next two games as we chased two big scores for two big wins. The first was against Fairfield-Liverpool (288), where Harry Turner and Adam Cubbage, backing up after taking 3 for 46 off 16 overs, put on an unbeaten 118 in 16 overs to get us over the line with two overs to spare. Brett Marvell also chipped in with a valuable 54.
The next game against North Sydney (299) was a game for the two Camerons. Cameron Crawford made 102 and Cameron Eccles an unbeaten 86 and, with the help of Chad Soper (21*), saw us win with an over to spare.
Northern Districts then bought us back down to earth, bowling us out for 209. This was a good total considering we were, at one stage, 6 for 87. Chad Soper (74) batted well above his 15 years of age to put on a valuable 87 run partnership with his captain (Ahmed 41) to give us a defendable total. We had ND’s 3 -17 at one stage but the shine came off the new ball and they passed us comfortably 4 down.
A wash out over the next two weekends against Uni of NSW and then the annual Gordon luncheon saw the 4’s at 2 from 4 and in the middle of a very tight table.
Some bludgeoning from Mitchell Kleem (41) and Blair Lindsay (19) set up the run chase against Campbelltown-Camden (229). It was ably finished off by steady knocks from Las Kannangara (37), Brett Marvell (66*) and Chad Soper (25*).
On to round 7 and a remarkable “get out of jail” win against Easts. In a game that started in drizzling rain (up to around the 25th over), we managed to bowl them out (the first team in the season we had bowled out) for 234 (James Kennedy 4 for 42 off 10), but at 8 for 165 (Lindsay 70) in the 43rd over, all looked lost. Enter Cubbage (74*) and Umayr Amir (20*) who both backed themselves, and their talent, in knocking off the 63 runs required in 7 overs to bring us home off the last ball of the game!
Victories against Parramatta and St. George saw the team in a steady position at the half way point of the season.
Post Christmas was a bit of a disaster with the weather interrupting the next two games to have a washout draw against Wests and then a loss to eventual champions Randwick-Petersham, followed by another washout with Sydney. Another loss to Mosman put us out of the top 6 and struggling to gain a finals birth. However an outright win against Blacktown and then a win with a bonus point against Manly-Warringah propelled us back up to 6th on the ladder by 3 points.
There were some remarkable scores and figures from these games with Sherman scoring 73 and 29, Kannangara 35 and 46, Guy Hicks 87, 24* and 76* and Hugh Selby 42 and 44*. On the bowling side Ahmed had 5/43 off 14, 5/53 off 14.3 and 5/29 off 13.1 and James Campbell 3/28 off 12, a remarkable 6/21 off 8 and 3/21 off 10. Soper, Effeney, Cubbage and Siriwardhane all chipped in with great support.
The Qualifying Final, the first game of the post season…….suffice to say that I lost the toss (yet again) and Randwick-Petersham decided to have a bat. It’s funny because had I actually won the toss I would have invited Randwick-Petersham to have a bat, as we needed to bowl them out to have any chance in the game.
Unfortunately the gods were not smiling on us this weekend as the Randy-Petes bats set about slowly establishing their innings, and it worked, as all of the bowlers proved ineffective in the first session (0-55 after 35 overs).
 We made a few crucial breakthroughs in the second session but left it to the third session, with the second new ball, to turn it on. We managed to bowl Randy-Petes out for 280 in the 94th over with James Campbell (4/28 off 19) the pick of the bowlers. Chad Soper (3/63) and Adam Cubbage (2/51) gave great support. With three overs left we lost Mitchell Kleem to be 1 for 2 at stumps.
James Campbell made plenty of crucial breakthroughs during the season
The second day started off poorly as we lost another wicket in the 4th over. A spirited fight back by Hicks (30) and Sriwardhane (24) then saw us reach 58 in the 18th over. What happened in the next 18 overs was nothing short of disastrous. We lost 8 wickets for 52 runs to be bundled out for 106. We had left our worst batting performance for the Qualifying Final, but that’s cricket.
Thank you to everyone who helped out or had a hand in what was a tough yet enjoyable season. A special thank you to Jamie Soper and Tim Cubbage for their help with scoring and various other jobs they perform during the course of the season.
Commiserations and congratulations to Matt Nicholson and the First Grade team for a wonderful season, only to be pipped in the grand final by St. George.
It’s great to be Gordon down old Chatswood way! Get fah you bah!
Iqbal Ahmed | 
