TEAM OF THE HALF CENTURY

In the Club's 50th anniversary season, the Club would establish a Hall of Fame. The inaugural inductees of this Hall of Fame would be a selection of a 12 player “Team of the Half Century”, selected from the entire pool of players to have ever played for the Club, which would represent the best and most balanced team in the Club’s history.

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Winter 2021 would see the assembly of a selection committee, chosen by yearbook editor of 13 years Steven Rule, to select this Team of the Half Century. The committee would consist of Barry Chesson and Dave Sammut, who had already had the experience of selecting the Teams of the Decade, with the addition of Peter Kennelly who would both represent the modern era of the Club and provide valuable data analysis skills to the selection process. The three person combination would suitably represent every era of the Club’s history, with Barry’s playing career spanning from the Club’s first ever game in 1972 through to 1994/95, Dave’s career spanning 1990/91 to 2021/22 and Peter’s career spanning 2009/10 to 2021/22, and between them the trio would bring 696 games, 47 seasons of Committee service and 31 captaincies worth of experience to the selection process.

And so, the committee would meet at Barry’s house and undertake the difficult task of narrowing a large list of incredible players over 50 seasons of cricket into just 12 positions. Their term of reference would be simple enough, to “determine the Club’s best ever team, based purely on aspects such as performance, ability, longevity and influence.”