Cricket Shepparton Team of the Year: SJ Perry Shield D-grade

By Zac Standish

Mar 14, 2022

Fantastic season: Old Students’ Jason Bathman. Photo by Rodney Braithwaite

In the lead up to the Lightfoot Medal on Wednesday March 16, Cricket Shepparton has, for the first time, announced a Team of the Year for each of its five senior grades.

Following the VCCL Team of the Year guidelines, each squad features two openers, four batters, one all-rounder, one wicketkeeper and four bowlers with the nominations based on total runs, wickets and wicketkeeping dismissals — not taking into account averages.

The News will feature one team a day from the B to E-grade in the lead-up to Wednesday’s presentation night, where the A-grade Team of the Year and Lightfoot medallist will be announced.

Next up is the SJ Perry Shield D-grade Team of the Year.

The SJ Perry Shield D-grade Team of the Year features a relatively even spread of clubs, with Old Students (three), Pine Lodge (three), Central Park-St Brendan’s (three), Mooroopna (two) and Northerners (one) making an appearance.

Another excellent season: Tiger Peter Hogeboom. Photo by Megan Fisher

Mooroopna’s Geoff Wood takes his place at the top of the order after a stellar season that yielded 411 runs at a monstrous 82.20.

Hitting a remarkable 170 in round 15, Pine Lodge’s Dayne Webber headlines the batters after a 414-run season and is joined by Old Students duo Jayden Gagliardi (394 runs at 39.40) and Jason Bathman (400 runs at 50).

The dominance of Pine Lodge’s Braydon Kearns has been recognised as the all-rounder, after he made an astonishing 705 runs at 70.5 and took 22 wickets at 13.

Keeping on: Northerners’ Jason Wisely. Photo by Rodney Braithwaite

Lodgers teammate Manjit Singh leads the bowling attack after taking 32 wickets from 16 matches, while Ashley Hooper (23 wickets), Jason Wisely (21 wickets) and Thomas Favaro (20 wickets) round out the squad.