As the holiday season fast approaches, the John McMahon Shield is winding down for the year, before picking up again in early 2025.
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As such, Oliver Shedden has checked in with all nine A-grade captains ahead of their final fixture before the Christmas break to get their thoughts through eight rounds and their hopes for the remainder of the 2024-25 season.
This edition, Oliver spoke with Rochester’s Angus Martin, Bamawm-Lockington United’s Regis Chakabva and Nondies-Cohuna’s Kyeran Ellery.
Rochester
Martin’s Rochy side is perhaps outplaying expectations to start off the season as is sits in second place with a record of 5-1, its only blemish so far coming against Moama.
On top of the captaincy, Martin has been making his fair share of contributions. He is currently Rochy’s leading wicket-taker, claiming 13 scalps so far at 13.6, while also totalling 105 runs at an average of 21 with the bat.
Martin was pleased with Rochester’s performance so far and pointed to the contributions of key under-18s players who have stood up and gained valuable experience in A-grade.
“The results have been pretty good. Everyone has been playing well and are open to new roles,” he said.
“Ollie Williams batted great last week, he is growing, and Cale James, the young guy, is bowling nicely.
“We had William and James Hipwell come across from Cooma last year and Cale, Ollie and Matt Harrington are all getting some good exposure to A-grade as well, which is good to see considering they are all under-18.”
Martin said Rochester was looking ahead to finals but acknowledged the amount of work it would take to not only get there, but to thrive.
“Results are going our way so far, so we are definitely looking at finals, but we have a lot of hard work to go before then,” he said.
“We will be working on developing a bit more batting consistency, getting ourselves in and batting throughout the innings.”
BLU
Chakabva’s BLU has had an up-and-down campaign thus far in 2024-25, always in the mix but sometimes falling short in contests they were favoured to win.
Yet, the former Zimbabwean national vice-captain continues to deliver for his side, pouring in 358 runs, the most of anyone in the competition from seven innings at an average of 59.66 in an attempt to drag his side into finals contention.
Following a GMC T20 competition championship, the Lions have begun to find better all-round form of late, particularly with the bat in their most recent match against Moama, where Luke Thompson (85) and Cameron Laird (65) showed glimpses.
“It was quite a good win in the T20 competition. I thought we played well and kept talking about being as positive as we could be when we were batting, and our bowlers delivered for us,” Chakabva said.
“It’s obviously a very different format, but from a confidence point of view, we will hold our heads high.”
Chakabva said the first half of the season was used as an opportunity for the side to gel and figure out game plans before heading into the pointy end of the season.
Batting in particular was a focus for the side, which looks to build out around Chakabva in the hopes of consistently posting big scores.
“We are more than halfway through the season now and I think one of the good things is that we are learning a lot as we are going, particularly changing our game plans from one to two-day matches,” he said.
“We have been working a lot on our batting and being able to build partnerships and rotate the strike, just focusing on being a bit more positive.
“So that is something that we will continue to build on after the break. Outside that, our bowling has been great and our fielding has been excellent.”
Nondies-Cohuna
Through eight rounds, Nondies-Cohuna hasn’t had the season it would have hoped for so far as it has yet to win a game, with quotient the only thing keeping it off the bottom of the ladder.
Yet, Nondies was able to glean one bright spot from its 2024-25 campaign so far: making the T20 competition final against BLU.
While it was unable to win that contest, it has proven to both itself and spectators that the side is able to be competitive and put in good all-round performances when required.
Nondies captain Kyeran Ellery has had a quiet start to the season, taking just three wickets and totalling 27 runs with the bat at an average of 4.5.
Ellery’s standout performance to date was in that aforementioned final where he took 3-22, but performance isn’t the crux of his importance to this side — it is his experience and willingness to guide Nondies’ youth.
“We knew at the start of the year we were going to be a young side, having just three players over the age of 23, but a few of those young guys have taken a step up,” he said.
“Angus Donat has opened the batting for the majority of the year, and Will O’Shea has looked good in his first year as joint captain.
“We have had four debutants so far this season, which is really positive because we are building for the future.
“From a learning and training point of view, it has been great. All the young guys are hungry to learn from the older guys and wanting to become better cricketers.”
Ellery said some main focus points for the side would be getting consistent availability, with strong players returning to the team in the back half of the season, as well as working on batting depth and consistent scoring.
“A big one for us to focus on in the back half of the season is availability and consistency. The least number of changes we’ve made from week to week is three,” he said.
“We have good availability for the back half, which will be valuable for us, including Xavier Wishart back from state under-19 championships.
“A main focus is putting runs on the board for us to defend. We believe that our bowling group is good enough and is one of the better attacks in the competition, we just need to be backing that up with the bat.”
Cadet Journalist