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2 years ago
Keiran Knight
Keiran Knight
Newcastle, NSW, Australia
5 Likes
1 Followers



Keiran Knight – my best captain

The best captain I played with was Neil Maxwell.

Encouraged us to play attacking positive cricket. Max new his players and their ability. His knowledge of the game and when to use his quicks or spinners. He was a hard taskmaster but held himself to those levels of expectation.

One match against Parramatta we won on first innings prior to tea but we didn’t bowl or field overly well. He got stuck into us at the tea break and we sent them back in to follow on.

Max was pretty fired up and took the new ball. Parramatta were 4 for 1 at the end of the over. We won outright in 13 overs. We all jumped on his coat tails and followed his example.

We then knew the standards we were setting as a team.

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2 years ago
Evan Atkins
Evan Atkins
Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
7 Likes
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Evan Atkins - my best captain

Barry Davison was my captain in 3rd grade in 1983. He led a young team like the pied piper and he was inspirational with his batting, making some opposing spinners cry with his sweeping and lofted off drives.

His field placements and bowling changes during that season as I think back were beyond a lot of the players cricketing comprehension. We really had no idea what he was doing, we just followed the leader.

Looking back, he was so far ahead of the game I didn’t appreciate the minutia at the time, but it was amazing.

Lenny Pascoe was a different kettle of fish. 1985 we were a very young first grade team finding our way. Justin Kenny, Mark Chapman, Phil Weatherall, Kevin Tuite all very inexperienced and happily following Len around, a few of us in our first seasons.

We played UNSW at Caringbah and Geoff Lawson had just jumped off a plane from a successful Ashes series and very keen to play grade cricket. Friday night there was a huge storm in Caringbah and there were holes in the covers. When the covers were removed there was a one metre circular wet spot just short of a length at the northern end. You could squeeze you finger into the patch up to the first joint on your index finger. Anyway, the young Sutherland side were on tenterhooks as Len went out to for the toss. He walked back towards the rooms motioning that we were batting. He closed the dressing room door and announced to the team that he had won the toss but decided to bat on a wet wicket to see how his young batsmen would react and handle the situation

I played most of my first-grade cricket under John Dyson. After the ban he and Steve Rixon had post the rebel tour to South Africa, Dyso decided to go to Sydney Uni so he could captain a first grade side while Stumpa took the reins at Sutherland.

As a wicket keeper I followed Dyso to Uni and the way he blended a side together with stalwarts like Mick O’Suilivan and John Grimble was amazing.

The Uni side was young with some serious talent but he had the nous to bring that side together into what was a happy well-functioning side.

We both returned to Sutherland, and he mentored players like Jake Kenny, Phil Weatherall, Glenn McGrath, Mark Chapman to maximise what they had as cricketers. As a 40 year old he played some inspiring knocks against the likes of Holdsworth, Killen, Alley and a few slower nemesis’s I won’t mention.

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2 years ago
Cricket Without Borders
Cricket Without Borders
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
18 Likes
0 Followers



Women’s Sport Advocate – Sports Integrity Expert with Catherine Ordway

Catherine is an international expert in the field of integrity in sport and is a strong advocate of women’s sport. She is also a sought-after media commentator and conference presenter and has served on numerous ethics and anti-doping committees in Australia and internationally.

Catherine played an instrumental role in securing humanitarian visas for members of the Afghanistan women’s cricket team and their families to settle in Australia in 2021 after the Taliban took over Afghanistan.

https://www.cricconnect.com/profile/1274/cricket-without-borders/blog/1840/womenrsquos-sport-advocate-ndash-sports-integrity-expert-with-catherine-ordway
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2 years ago
Adrian Jones
Adrian Jones
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
4 Likes
0 Followers



Adrian Jones - my best cricket captain

Although I was lucky to play under several excellent captains it would be hard to overlook the man who led our team during an extremely successful era and winning four premierships I was involved in at St Kilda Cricket Club.

Tim O’Sullivan was a terrific manager of ambitious cricketers. He did have a team of considerable talent which included a minimum of 4 state squad members at any one time. Sadly, they were mostly batsmen but that’s ok!

Not all players were playing for Victoria so when they all available to play club cricket Tim was able to manage the team and specifically the batting order so that all the batsmen were given the opportunity to score runs but also maintain a team ethos of playing for each other and also looking to win games of cricket which is what we all craved.

He was a good, clear communicator that ensured that everyone was on the same page going into a match but also that he would be the decision maker of how the team played.

He was also a thorough listener….and he needed to be!

He would often receive ideas and advice from players of significant experience within the playing group and he would need to weed out certain pieces of advice that may have had ‘self-interest’ attached or were too negative and not taking a team forward to get better, even by the smallest of percentages.

And despite being able to manage all these situations Tim was at his best on the field in the heat of battle usually when the circumstances were at their most challenging.

He scored a match winning century in tough conditions against Hawthorn-Waverley CC in a semi-final when no other batsman could even slightly look settled at the crease. Despite poor weather he also encountered a change to the playing conditions with play being held up on occasions that may have caused him to take risks too great to try and boost the run rate. That innings stood out clearly during that game and lead us to the first of four premierships the following week.

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2 years ago
Eastern Suburbs Cricket Club Sydney
Eastern Suburbs Cricket Club Sydney
Sydney, Australia
16 Likes
25 Followers



The 2003/04 season in NSW Premier Cricket was a remarkable one for the Eastern Suburbs Cricket Club first grade team winning three premierships.

Eastern Suburbs won the One-Day Competition after defeating Sydney University by 4 wickets and then won the State One Day Challenge beating NSW Country’s finest Southern Zone.

The pinnacle of the season was winning the Belvidere Cup and first grade premiership defeating Randwick Petersham in the final by 39 runs.

This last weekend was the 20-year reunion of the Dolphin’s Triple Crown.

From left to right – Peter Lovitt, Justin Dery, Adrian Tucker, James Marshall, Lee Kirk, Nick Berry, Jason Swift, Paul Byrom, Owen Ridge (Scorer), Mark Patterson, Kirk Powell, Kyle Thompson, Michael Maclennan, Josh Holt, Michael O’Connell, John McCallum, Jeff Cook in the front.

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2 years ago
Greg McLay
Greg McLay
Cricket Coach
Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, Australia
1 Likes
0 Followers



Greg McLay – my best captain

I probably had a few captains who each had their own unique qualities that resonated but I think nominating who the best captain was, is tricky. The two leadership qualities I valued the most were intuitiveness and a deep understanding of the game and an ability to inspire (actions and words).

I loved playing with attacking players who loved to win and compete, and Phil Marks was one, as was Darren Tucker. Both excellent leaders. Both understood you sometimes have to risk losing in order to win. That was a valuable lesson I gained from both of those blokes.

Geoff Lawson was another. Henry was my NSW Shield captain and as a kid who wasn’t quite sure if they belonged at that level, he always backed me. I remember him bringing me on to bowl really early in my debut match when we fielded first against WA.

Henry knew I was really nervous. Henry also knew that by getting me immersed in the contest, it would be a good distraction for me. I bowled pretty well, and I think his decision to do that set me up nicely.

Henry also was known for his daring declarations, so he also knew you sometimes had to risk losing to get a good result. A really brave captain.

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2 years ago
Patrick Skene
Patrick Skene
Marketing Director
Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
7 Likes
0 Followers



Congratulations to Nathan Lyon for joining the 500 wicket spinners club - a special group reserved for the greats of the game - Warney, Murali & Kumble & one of only 8 bowlers in Test history to reach the milestone. Growing up in Young, a 4 hour drive from Sydney, Lyon was thrown into the cricketing deep end and recalls his baptism of fire fondly:

“I was a pretty tiny fella growing up and I was also playing A-Grade at the age of 12 and that was against men. And they didn’t hold back at all. That was the deal. I was there to compete, like anyone else,” Lyon said.

"You learn a lot quicker as a country kid, I dare say. It was pretty amazing."

His dream of playing for Australia looked all but gone as he worked hard as a groundsman at the Adelaide Oval, having moved to South Australia for opportunity.

https://www.cricconnect.com/profile/505/patrick-skene/blog/1836/congratulations-to-nathan-lyon-for-joining-the-500-wicket-spinners-club
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