Nightcliff Cricket Club
After making the two day finals in 2022 and 2023, picking up the the T20 in 2022 and runners up in 2023 but taking home the One Day Premiership and Club Championship in 2023, the Tigers are on the cusp of two day premiership in the 1st XI while their lower grades, particularly the 2nd XI are always competitive. With a great off field culture that sees a tight knit group, strong juniors reaching senior level, and the best track in the competition the last three years running, the Yellow and Black are definitely in the mix in all three formats again. A big thanks to President, Murali Varatharajan who has given us a great in depth look at the club for the 2024 season
Ins - Zac Honeybrook – fast bowler from Quensland, played in the ACT side last year, Tyler van Luin – batting all-rounder, in the ACT Comets squad and has had a fantastic year.
Micayla Roelofse – coming up to work on her cricket playing in the senior competition, and mentoring our women’s side
Outs – Caelan Maladay, Hanno Jacobs, Josh Brown – 3 huge losses for us, but we may have them back in the future. All three served the club well, great ambassadors of the game, and are stars in the making – in the case of JB a star.
Holly Spencer – huge loss to the club, again another star in the making – fantastic person.
We wish all of them the best, and will always welcome them back.
Returning - James Doherty, Paul Wasiewicz, Connor Carroll, Douwtjie Hoogenboezem, Mansukh Singh are all returning players. Always great to have returning players allows us to create good club culture.
Any changes in the coaching department? - Chris Stockdale, replacing Michael Hancock
Mick brought a lot to the club and built a tightly knit playing group. He will be sorely missed.
Chris Stockdale brings a different set of skills to the club. Very experienced player (having played county cricket) and a very experienced and knowledgeable coach (coached a number of successful sides in the UK and Australia, and just returning from India, having had a stint with Delhi Capitals to further his coaching knowledge there).
We are hoping to build on the legacy that Mick created at the club.
Captains of Men & Women – Michael Kudra & TBD (will be able to make it public on Friday)
Some positive you’ve had in preseason, young players progressing well?
We have a number of young cricketers coming through. Nicholas Fleming and James Hatton leading the way for juniors in senior cricket, along with the likes of Noah Ker, Samson Bament, Saxon Theodore-Smith, and a couple of new kids Riley Suter, Oliver Smith.
Together with the batch of youthful cricketers like Michael Kudra, Charlie Smith, Jai Allman, Janu Varatharajan, Rohan Philip, Andre Richards, Nick Wheeler – not to mention our recruits who are all young cricketers.
It would be remiss of me to mention that a number of young juniors 14 and up, and even a couple younger than that, are keen to play senior cricket. This becomes the club’s responsibility to make sure that we accommodate them.
But, it is a great story.
Some massive efforts by the committee on our junior program – led by Amanda Hoepper and Ella Piccoli-Auckram in drumming up support from schools. This has been a mammoth effort on the junior front, after a couple of years where we haven’t been as effective as we could have been. It represents building the junior program from bottom up – starting with Woolworths Blast.
How is the women’s team looking?
We have strong numbers and interest in the women’s team, with young Ella Piccoli-Auckram taking a lead role in the development of the women’s game for the club – just a little aside Ella was part of the first all-girls under 11 side nearly 10 years ago.
Young Micyala Roelofse (from WA) and Zita Varatharajan will be the key players, with Jemima Anver-Raeck and Sylvie Pritchard the players to watch in the future.
Predictions for finals each format?
As always, our aim is to be competitive each week in all our grades, and I think we will do that. And in that pursuit, if we are successful with a couple of titles, that will be a huge bonus. We will make strong representations in1s, 2s and 3s and we have to see how 4s pan out. Our Sunday sides will also be competitive, but we will balance some of those sides with a more participation-based teams on Sundays.
We are committed to balancing the on-field successes with development of our local talent. I believe we have done well over the past couple of years with the help of Mick and Josh Smith as the chairman of selectors; and we will continue to do that this year. Our aim is to qualify for major rounds in all our grades. Realistically, I think our 1s, 2s, 3s, Women, Sunday 1 and Under 15 blue are a good chances of making it to major rounds. I am hoping that we could achieve that and perhaps take it to the next step and bring home some silverware to the den.
What’s your depth like in the second XI?
Our depth in 2s is as strong as it has always been. This has been our strength for a number of years – with a number of young players looking to push for higher honours. As always, the club will treat 2s as our training ground for players wanting to look for higher honours, balancing the side with some experienced players.
I think our 2s will do well again this year and qualifying for the major rounds, and anything beyond that will be a bonus.
Had any issues to work through over the off season?
Our major distraction was the attempted merger with the University club, which unfortunately didn’t eventuate. Apart from that our key off-field challenges included recruitment, and completing some of the infrastructure projects that had been running for sometime – but nothing major.
Thoughts on no Cricket 365 this season?
I have mixed feelings about the decision not to have Cricket 365. I understand why we need to attract players and events to Darwin in order to be relevant to Cricket Australia and its wider goals. I also understand the importance of having good players in our competition; and let’s be honest, a lot of high quality recruits want to come to Darwin to take part in Cricket 365. Although we may not feel the impact this year, not having Cricket 365 will mean Darwin cricket becomes less attractive to players from down south, who will look at UK as a better option. This will equally apply to our better local players – who may want to go to UK during the off-season, especially if they are playing high level of cricket down south. I think that will be counter productive to goals and aspirations of most clubs, definitely ours.
Having said all of that, I do think there needs to be some return on investment, or at least prospect of some in the near future. This is important when the best resources available in the local competition – from grounds, umpires, volunteers, players and coaches become unavailable to local competition. I think the promise of investment in new infrastructure, especially turf wickets, hasn’t really materialised.
So, I have mixed feeling towards the Cricket 365 decision.
Any changes of note to the competition that you think will have an impact?
I don’t think there are any major changes to the competition that are particularly
noteworthy.
Appreciate your time and all the best for 2024