Match Facts
Date: Sunday, January 12, 2025
Location: Fairfield Oval , Fairfield, VIC
Time: 1pm start
Captain: Prez
The Big Picture
Hello to 2025. We are now into the 15th season of The Quokkas (Australian edition), which is still providing laughs and entertainment, with some story and character arcs developing and others being as flat as the horizon.
We kick off this year with a game against our old friends, The John Curtin Hotel. We’ve had a number of memorable games against The Curtin, not least; their first win, Rowdy’s 84*, their last game in the league*, my first 6 (that was actually caught by man-mountain Cassidy on the boundary), and many more.
Regardless, I can’t think of a better bunch to spend a Sunday arvo with and am very much looking forward to catching up with them.
Pitch and Conditions
As fans of cricket and cricket-adjacent benefits, it’s great to see increasing demand for grounds for all cricketers great and small, though it does mean we usually get the detritus of whatever pitch is left available on a Sunday afternoon after the elderly, young, big, small and otherwise washed have been seen to.
With a great stroke of luck, we are back to Fairfield Oval for the second match in a row.
In our last game, against the Railway, the boundaries were brought in so close that the wicket-keeper was almost on the wrong side of the rope when facing up to the spinners. Here’s hoping that mistake isn’t made again.
Fairfield is probably the nicest outfield that we have access to, and is usually lush enough to stop the rare balls that are hit along the ground from getting to the rope.
It is supposed to be a hot week though, so that famous thick grass could be a lot thinner and drier.
Unfortunately, it is due to rain on Sunday, though only 7mm, so shouldn’t be enough to keep us on but (like the Benny Goodman) could help with a little bit of swing.
Team News
It’s been a good season for the Quokkas, numbers wise, with more than enough players turning up to games, as well as huge numbers at net sessions. We must be doing something right.
We started the week with 14 available, though that has already shrunk down to a possible 12. Lord knows who will be left after Saturday night. It’s like a version of ‘Squid Game’, this.
OK, the squad (at the time of writing) is:
- Prez (c)
- Radar (w/k)
- Ed
- F1
- Sizzle
- Santo
- Gelder
- Animal
- Rev
- Dusty
- Jayco
- Ice
- Fargo (injury cloud)
- Jay (nimbus cloud)
Facts and Stats
I’ve been a bit remiss in keeping the knowledge around milestones going, so apologies. If there are any requests, please get in touch. In the interim, here’s a few tid-bits to keep you warm on a winter’s evening:
- I missed it, but the last game against the Railway was Jay’s 75th appearance for the Quokkas, which is the 4th highest overall and a decent effort for a bloke that lives 2,000kms away.
- Not a traditional milestone, but it was also The Animal’s 45th appearance for us. Starting off as someone who came down to watch and then have a bit of a bowl, he’s become a core member of the squad and we really do appreciate his beers him.
- Animal also managed to snag a wicket against the Railway, taking him to 15 YPCA wickets at an unbelievable 6.74 RPO.
- Speaking of wickets, Fargo took his YPCA tally to 10 in the last game, to go along with 12 catches at 0.75 catches per match, the second most in club history for anyone with more than 10 catches (Curto first on 0.88).
- Fargo is also 141 YPCA runs, so should crack the 150 by the end of the season.