Hay cricket greats recognised
Back (from left) - Liam Whitbourne, Jensen Hargreaves, Isaac Gardiner, Simon Bunyan. Front Jagger Shields, Bill Houston, Kyper Woods, Josh Gardiner. More photos to follow next week. Photos supplied by Hay Cricket Club
Hay Cricket held its Presentation night to finish up the season at the Crown on Monday.
Liam Whitbourne walked away with the prestigious Beizel Shield, voted Champion Player in the senior cricket competition. Whitbourne also won Michael Howard Most Valuable Player, topping off a stellar season, his second season in Hay.
Jensen Hargreaves claimed the batting award, scoring the most runs for the season. He averaged almost double the runs than the next best in the competition. While Isaac Gardiner, still only young, won his second successive bowling award with 14 wickets, confirming his status as one of Hay’s leading bowlers, which he showed in an excellent display in the Creet Cup early in the season.
Simon Bunyan picked up the bowling average award with a miserly average of 3.4. In the junior ranks, Bill Houston was awarded the Champion Player and Best Bowler for the Milliken Shield, with George Auldist, the Milliken Shield coach commenting on Bill’s potential as a cricketer. Other Milliken awards went to Max Spence for batting, Kyper Woods for fielding and Most Improved Ned Williamson.
Saturday morning competition was run by Alice Caldow and Devlin Clarke and is a wonderful display of two juniors putting back into the sport. David Caldow took out Batting and Fielding award, Josh Gardiner won Bowling, Dylan Wilson Most Improved and Jagger Shields the Encouragement.
The final award, the Clive Davenport award for the Club Person of the Year, was a difficult choice given the large contributions to cricket from greats such as Rob Neil, Glenn and Linda Caldow, Sarah Houston, Lily Tassell and Michelle Harrington. The very worthy winner was Brian ‘Chuck’ Harrington, who continues to be the driving force behind Hay Cricket. Whether running the canteen, doing raffles, umpiring juniors, helping with pitch preparation, providing expert commentary on cricket matters, Chuck is the essence of Hay Cricket.
