The Camden Campelltown District Cricket Club new president Shawn Galvin summed up the first weekend of the new season at Raby with: “Weekends can’t get any better than this, surely.” The Ghosts had just experienced their best opening round of Sydney Grade Cricket in a 31 year history – two days of dominance against five opposing clubs no less, reports Jason Ellsmore.
On Saturday, skipper Josh Clarke led from the front. The 22 year old opener punished the Eastern Suburbs bowlers with 140 not out.
He joined only the match umpires spending every minute of the game in the middle. Opening bowlers Scott Coyte and Tom Rogers took three wickets each as the locals grabbed the points.
The seconds fought hard for a gutsy win on the back of their captain Dan Constable’s 74 runs and Mitch McGrath’s three wickets.
While the young Campbelltown Camden third grade lost against an experienced Eastern Suburbs team, and the 4th grade affair at Randwick was washed out, the local fifth grade stormed home on the bottom Raby ground.
Ghosts all time bowling record holder Roscoe Ray added four more wickets to his tally after Nick Appleton’s 69 runs and Cameron Binskin’s 71 had assisted in building an insurmountable total.
Saturday was a great start for the Ghosts. Sunday was to unfold into something that not even the most one eyed life member of the club would have dreamt of. Four home games and four completely demoralised opponents heading back onto the M5 and M7.
On Raby #1 the Ghosts 1st Grade Men’s team began their 2015-16 T/20 campaign with a game either side of lunch. The locals defeated Fairfield Liverpool by 56 runs in the morning and made short work of Western Suburbs in the afternoon defeating the Magpies by 67 runs.
Scott Coyte had a day out with the bat scoring 67 and 72 not out as he enjoyed watching Damien Mortimer’s 48 runs against the Lions in the morning and Tylar Edwards bombing four sixes (almost in succession) on his way to 34 from 15 balls against Wests.
That made it three renditions of the club victory song in the men’s first grade dressing room in two days.
Not to be outdone the Ghosts women’s firsts in the Raby #2 dressing rooms sung just as loud having rolled Northern Districts for 110 runs after posting 237.
State players Stef Daffara (55 runs) and Jenny Taffs (32 runs) opened the bat and control of the game never left the Ghosts.
Fifteen year old Tahlia Wilson, on debut, hit seven boundaries on her way to her first 48 first grade runs. Tahlia is one of many young Ghosts stars that plenty will be written about in the future.
Captain Claire Koski took 4 -29 to enable the girls to finish early and enjoy the men’s victory from the Raby clubroom verandah.
Meanwhile on Raby #3 more Ghosts history was being written as the Ghosts Masters team played its first ever game against Wyong in the Sydney Masters competition. Chasing 144 the “Grey” Ghosts coasted to victory inside 29 overs, Todd O’Keefe contributing a handy 33 run haul along the way.
Next weekend the Ghosts line up against Randwick Petersham in round two of the 2015-16 season.
