Norths Go Back To Back

Congratulations to Northern Suburbs, who have been crowned champions of the Cam Battersby Cup for season 2024/25!

The Vikings claimed the KFC Men’s Two Day Competition trophy for the second consecutive season after defeating the Sunshine Coast Scorchers. 

After winning on first innings across the first weekend of the final, Norths were in the box seat coming into the last weekend of play for the year. Heavy rain saw no play on Saturday, leaving the Scorchers a mighty task to set a target and dismiss Norths before stumps. 

Returning to play 3/42 in their second innings, the Scorchers were in essence 3/14 when accounting for Norths first innings lead. Despite their batters best efforts, a tight bowling display and tricky early morning wicket saw it hard to score. The early loss of last week’s centurion Tom Engelbrecht (7 off 19) was not the start they were hoping for. Runs were hard to come by, and despite strong efforts from Ben Gear (34 off 60), Curtis McAllister (27 off 69) and Nick Fletcher (18 off 48), the confidence and consistency of the Norths bowling unit proved too strong. 

An early wicket to tall left armer Marcus Bean (4/56) sparked his confidence and saw him take 4 of the first 5 wickets for the day. Following Bean’s momentum, Blake Maher (4/37) came back into the action and added a further pair of wickets to his tally from the previous week. The Scorchers finished all out 152, leaving Norths 124 to win outright.

Norths openers set about a conservative approach with no real pressure on them to win the match. With plenty of time left in the afternoon and batting firepower to come, Zac Perren (15 off 50) and Mitch Doolan (60* off 83) saw through the new ball and passed 40 before the first wicket fell. Young gun Alex Procopis (39 off 49) then joined Doolan as they both picked up the scoring rate and raced towards the target. 

With only 12 runs needed for victory, Blake Maher (12* off 2) wasted no time in finishing the job. Maher belted two massive sixes before pumping his fists to the sky to signal victory. Maher’s symbolic pose was fitting of his immense performance which was recognised with the Andy Bichel Medal for player of the match. 

The win is now Norths’ second consecutive two day premiership, placing them in rare company as back-to-back champions. Only three sides have won consecutive premierships since 1980, and interestingly each side went on to win a third. They are Wynnum-Manly (1980/81-1982/83), Sandgate-Redcliffe (1997/98-1999/00) and University of Queensland (2018/19-2020/21). 

Cricket is a game of statistics and percentages, and generally speaking the numbers won’t lie come the end of the season. However, this year’s premiership sits as an outlier in so many ways. 

Remarkably, Norths only won one match on first innings all two day season. However, they managed two second innings wins which provided a massive boost in points late in the season. In fact, they only entered the top four after the second last round and sat in the bottom half of the ladder for almost all of the summer. 

Norths scored the least number of runs across the competition and didn’t have a single batter score a century throughout the red ball season. They also had the third most amount of runs scored against them, leaving their runs scored for/against at -826, the second worst across all teams. 

However, outliers do exist, and not statistics are not always going to be right. That’s the beauty of sport.

On Sunday, Norths became the first side to win the premiership from 4th position on the ladder since MyCricket records began 20 years ago. Additionally, they are only the third side to win from outside the top two. The other two sides are Norths (2023/24) and Valley (2013/14).

Winning from outside of the top 2 is a remarkable feat. Not only do you have to beat the opposition in both games away from home, you have to beat the weather. To achieve this twice in two years is almost unthinkable.

Will this Norths side etch their name into further history next season and join their own First Grade group of 1970/71-1972/73 as three peat champions? We’ll have to wait and see.

Congratulations to all of the competition Premiership winners:
2nd Grade: Souths 
3rd Grade: Wests 
4th Grade: Souths 
5th Grade: Wests 
6th Grade: Valley