Thursday afternoon’s freak storm wreaked havoc on Orange District Cricket Association’s grounds, blowing the covers off several and forcing all turf wickets to be deemed unplayable, rendering the top grade and this weekend’s Royal Hotel Cup games abandoned.
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But the ODCA committee was doing everything in its power to ensure the lower grades went ahead on alternate, synthetic-wicket fields on Saturday, with confirmation expected late on Friday afternoon.
With those changes not yet locked in at time of publication, the Central Western Daily sports desk decided to attack one of the association’s long-standing issues – the top grade’s lack of a sixth first grade team.
Waratahs tried to fill the void but failed, while Orange City and CYMS both fielded second top grade sides for a season, but that stop-gap option was no long-term solution.
In all fairness this isn’t either, but after delving deep into MyCricket’s second grade numbers we’ve combined 2018-19’s best of the best so far into one bumper outfit to fill that void, hypothetically speaking of course.
The outfit – which we’ve dubbed the Canobolas Corndogs for no real reason in particular other than it being a funny name – was picked purely on statistics, including five batters, an all-rounder, a wicket-keeper and four bowlers.
All five of the competition’s clubs are represented in this side, with competition leaders Cavaliers and fourth-placed Kinross boasting the biggest contingents, with three apiece.
The last-placed and winless CYMS have two guns named, who have starred with bat and ball respectively, as do Orange City and Centrals.
At the top of order we’ve named two former first grade stalwarts in CYMS skipper Matt Baker and Cavaliers captain Stu Middleton. They’re first and second, respectively, Baker having scored 254 at an average of 42.33 while Middleton’s punched out 222 at 55.50, with a highest score of 160 to boot.
We’ve selected the former as skipper, purely so we could get Baker’s dozen into the story’s headline.
Cavaliers’ Cam Laird is our first drop, with 146 runs at 36.50 he’s fourth on the run-scoring list and would provide good foil for our hard-hitting opening pair, with Kinross player-coach Walter Prowse listed to bat at four for the Corndogs.
He’s linked with the students this summer and has knocked up 131 runs as at 21.83. Centrals’ noodler Will Richard is our fifth and final bat, he’s averaging 42.33 so far this summer with 127 runs on the board.
Batting at six is young Thomas Madigan, a teammate of Prowse’s at Kinross.
Madigan acts as the Corndogs’ all-rounder, which might surprise a few considering Middleton’s in the side.
However Madigan’s all-round numbers actually eclipse those of Middleton’s, the Kinross up-and-comer is third on the competition’s run-scoring list with 166 at 23.71, and he’s taken nine wickets at 17.3 to boot.
Orange City’s Troy O’Keefe takes the gloves, his five dismissals are the best of the specialist wicket-keepers, while his Warriors teammate Dylan Caughlan is one of the side’s four bowlers. He’s snared 15 wickets at 12.93.
Kinross spinner George Cumming has the best numbers of any bowler and acts as the tweaker in this side as a result, his 19 scalps this summer have come at just 9.47 runs apiece and he’s picked up two bagfuls, with best figures of 7-27.
Cavaliers’ Max Pearce (12 wickets at 8.42) and CYMS’ swing king Shehan Fernando (12 wickets at 16.25) round out the bowling attack.
Centrals’ Stu Pullar is 12th man, he’s taken 11 wickets at 11.36 with a five-wicket haul, and just missed out on a spot in the first XI.
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