By Marcus Uhe
Jeevan Mendis will shoulder the dual-responsibility of captaining and coaching at Narre South Cricket Club this summer in the Dandenong District Cricket Association’s (DDCA) Turf 1 competition.
The 2022/23 Wookey Medal winner, who holds ambitions to coach professional sides and has worked part-time at Dandenong in Victorian Premier Cricket, replaces Matthew Brooks as the Lions’ First XI coach, and Kyle Hardy as captain, who chose to step down after three seasons leading the Lions.
Narre South was one of the feel-good stories of the DDCA last season as a rapid improver powered by a brilliant second half of the season that saw them fall two wickets shy of a stunning grand final berth in a heartbreaking loss to Buckley Ridges.
Close wins in the second half of the seasons against fellow finals aspirants in Berwick (five runs) and Springvale South (six runs) saw them qualify for finals action, and prevail in another test of mental fortitude against Hallam Kalora Park in a spiteful and heated semi final by just two runs at Hallam.
Despite breaking into the upper echelon of Turf 1 teams, Hardy believes the Lions will still be seen as underdogs.
“That’s just how we’ve always been perceived since coming up to Turf 1,” he said.
“We’ve definitely earned a bit of respect from other clubs and we obviously noticed that, but Narre South as a whole, we’ve always had that underdog mentality where we think that most people are against us and they’re doubting how good we are, so we want to go out and show them.
“I think people might think [we over-achieved] outside, but inside, we never felt like we over-achieved, we felt like we were as good as anyone, and that’s how we’ve always thought.
“We were just going to go about playing our cricket and see what happens, but we never thought we over-achieved to get to that point, we just thought we’ve achieved what we had, because we were as good as anyone, and that’s just how we go about our cricket.”
All-rounders Mendis and returning former Wookey Medal winner Morteza Ali will provide stability and seniority to both the batting and bowling departments, with Callan Tout, the competition’s best seam bowler last summer, set to lead the attack once again.
Overseas imports Callum Nicholls and Alex Cruickshank are not returning to the club after brilliant seasons in purple last summer, as is fellow quick Jawed Hussaini, but Zach Wilson is, and with the development of younger players such as wicketkeeper Riley McDonald and batter Vinnie Jayasuriya, Hardy is confident the club has enough emerging talent to cover the absences.
“They’ve played enough and they’re good enough to be making runs for us, so I think it will be them (stepping up).”
