2024 Tournament Highlights

The Sandgropers achieved a lot at the inaugural 2024 tournament in Mildura and were one of the few franchises that analysed the draft nominations and tried to pick a balanced side regardless of the state of residence of the player.

With a squad of 16 players with 10 from WA, 2 from Victoria, 1 from New Zealand, 1 from South Australia, 1 from Queensland and one from New South Wales, there were a number of Zoom sessions prior to the event but the entire squad arrived a day early into Mildura and immediately bonded at the Team hotel and were confident of a good showing in the tournament.

The only pre-tournament mishap which was a major blow to the squad was that Anthony Barranca our captain and wicketkeeper arrived at the airport with a broken wrist and was unable to take part in the tournament. This saw the introduction into our number one keeping position of Simon Milton whom originally was planned to be our back up keeper. In the end it was an impressive effort by Simon Milton whom also had previously represented Australia as he went on to be the wicketkeeper of the tournament and was named in the Team of the tournament and took 4 catches and 9 stumpings throughout the week.

In what was a clear indication our selectors did a good job he was joined with two other team mates in the Team of the tournament.

One of those was our opening batsman Jamie Lee whom finished in the Top 10 in the batting averages (7th) and most runs (3rd) and also made the Top 10 for most 4's (3rd) and 6's (2nd). He also won three man of the match awards and averaged 44.83 for the tournament. An unknown before the event but a standout performance.

Our third player to make the player of the tournament was John Budalich whom was also the bowler of the tournament. He took 14 wickets at 11.71 and one a man of the match award for a 4-16 effort in our first win and was the top wicket taker and also made the Top 10 of the bowling averages (8th). His leg spin bowling was sensational all week.

Some other notable performance was the 49* not out, top score and man of the match performance by Todd Zani in our inaugural game against the Australian Pavilion side. He top scored for the side in our first win against the Lightning Storm when opening with Jamie Lee and made the Too 10 for batting averages (6th) with an average of 45.57.

Johhny Crognale took out a man of the match award in the game against Team Thunder when he made 20 and took 2-22 when we were outclassed by a better opposition side.

Ben Warren from New Zealand has sold tournament and was out second highest scorer throughout the tournament where he batted in varying positions throughout the tournament and averaged 39.75 but also took 4 wickets and was very handy in the field.

Stephen Gollan was the pick of the bowlers when it came to economy rate albeit he didn't take a lot of wickets in the tournament with a economy rate of 5.13 and Craig Calliess had the best dot ball percentage with 56.94 just mariginally ahead of Gollan on 52.17 and Craig Broomhall who was our substitute for Barranca and whom also had a solid tournament.

One of the major things to occur for the team during the tournament which other teams know about was the sad loss by one of our players of his son during the tournament. Nic Cullinane from Victoria received the tragic news whilst travelling between games.

Nic’s wishes were to deliver the tragic news personally and to drop off his fellow players that he was driving during that transit journey to our afternoon game and to tell his team mates and whom have become life long friends in the Sandgroper franchise, of the news and that he obviously would be leaving the tournament and would be returning to Melbourne to be with his wife and family during this difficult time.

Despite our offer to arrange a flight and to also arrange for someone else to drive him to Melbourne he was stoic and really wanted to do the return journey on his own and expressed his desire for the Sandgropers to continue to play the afternoon game and to give it our very best for he and his family.

He delivered that news to our team and respectfully our opponents and the umpires allowed sufficient time for us to process that news as a team and as a collective group and allow for a slight delay in the game so that our players and those that new Nic in our opposition team could process the news that we had just been advised of.

A huddle was formed with both teams so that Nic could deliver the news to all and it was heartfelt and the love for Nic and his family will not be forgotten and the Sandgroper Cricket franchise wishes to sincerely thank all those that were involved on that afternoon to support Nic and our franchise during what was an extremely difficult time.

Both teams, wore white arm bands as a sign of respect for Nic and his family and played with the spirit that we have come to expect from this tournament. The Sandgropers played arguably there best game of the tournament on that day and the euphoria of an excellent win in the morning was short lived and dulled by the news we received but the team, post wiping away many a tear were able to gather our thoughts and concentrate on delivering what we knew Nic would want us to do and which was to play on and to win for he and his family.

We are proud that we probably turned out our best performance of the event and paid respect to Nic and his family with the photo that has already been posted to our socials and which we have again posted below and had an excellent win. But it is insignificant when considering what he and his family are going through.

The team have formed the strongest bonds with one another from this tournament and are hoping for the continued off field success we enjoyed last year with the support of our many sponsors and are looking forward to returning to Mildura and building up the Sandgroper franchise.

Stay tuned for further updates in the lead up to the 2025 draft.