Casey-South Melbourne By Marc McGowan
CRAIG Entwistle was a celebrated member of the Premier Cricket team of the year in his first season at Casey-South Melbourne in 2006/07.
The diminutive left-hander remains one of the most respected members of the Swans’ line-up, but has just endured the toughest summer of his cricketing life.
Entwistle inherited the captaincy from Michael Hansen and struggled in what is one of the toughest gigs in Premier Cricket.
Hansen can attest to that after experiencing arguably the worst season of his career with the bat under the captaincy spotlight.
Entwistle managed just 45 runs over eight innings in one horror stretch this summer before ultimately making 344 runs at a tick over 21.
Swans coach Mark Ridgway said Entwistle burdened himself with too much responsibility.
“For us to be successful this year after what we lost, we needed him to make 800 runs but he didn’t do that and I’m sure he’ll butter up and be a better player next year,” Ridgway said.
“I would have preferred him to have worried just about making 100s than captaining the team, but that wasn’t the way it was at that particular stage.
“I thought he was a much better captain in the last eight weeks of the season when he didn’t have to shoulder as much responsibility himself.”
Club officials are set to debate the captaincy in a committee meeting next month that could see Damien Wright given the reins.
“We have a lot of things to discuss and that’s one of the topics,” Ridgway said.
