Playing it safe will pay off for big Billy
AUSTRALIAN cricket’s towering inferno Billy Stanlake is on course to play his first Sheffield Shield match in three years for Queensland next summer.
Stanlake is off to England for the first time in his life to bowl for the Australian 50 and 20 over sides next month and the giant fast bowler is gradually building his resilience towards a return to four-day cricket.
His only two first class evening in the second week of the competition.
Carter replaced previous matches were against South Australia and New South Wales in 2015 when he created an immediate impression by roughing up experienced first class batsmen and taking seven wickets in the two games.
Australia has limited his workload over the past few years due to his vulnerability to injury but red ball cricket is now officially back on his radar.
“If everything goes well … I will get the chance to play more red ball cricket next season,’’ Cutters coach Stacey Hart in the off-season and believes her club can build for the future as well as be a contender in 2018.
“We are going through a bit of a rebuilding stage, having a new coach it is about the new players and ideas getting used to each other,” Carter said.
“We have got a few loyal players who have stuck with the club as well as a few new Stanlake said.
Australia has been accused of being over-protective of Stanlake but he has been inspired by Pat Cummins, who morphed from one of Australia’s most brittle performers into a fast-bowling powerhouse through patient management.
“To see him doing so well and his body holding up gives me great confidence,’’ Stanlake said of Cummins. “It can be hard from the outside to see what is happening behind the players. There will be a few adjustments over the first few weeks.
“We are aiming to make the finals and we will put in the hard yards to hopefully get there.
“It is great to have a few fresh players on the court too that other teams do not know much about.”
In other Round 2 fixtures scenes to get players ready but you can see by how well he is going now and how his body is holding up, that is a lesson for me in that I have gone down a similar injury path.’’
The 204cm quick is being groomed as the likely X-factor in Australia’s challenge for the 50over 2019 World Cup in England.
Queensland has named its contract list for next season with young fast bowlers Xavier Bartlett, 19, and Jack Prestwidge, 22, the new faces on the main list. on Friday, Sharks were much too strong for Radars while defending premiers Cairns Saints defeated Trinity Beach Bulldogs.
In the division one reserves games on Friday night, the Cutters fell to the North Cairns Tigers.
Round 3 games will be played this Friday night at the Martyn Street Sports Park.
Queensland selection chairman Justin Sternes said he expected Australian batsman Chris Lynn would train with the squad closer to the start of the season even though he has again not chased a contract.
After a string of shoulder injuries Lynn is not contracted to Queensland or Australia partially because he is being assessed as a special case whose fitness will be assessed after the Indian Premier League to plot a path towards the World Cup.
Hoop’s dream run
BARCALDINE apprentice Alisha McDonell has made the kind of start to her riding career that couldn’t have been dreamt up, with a lazy seven winners over the weekend.
At just her third race meeting at Longreach on Saturday, she rode four winners.
Then on Sunday, 640km away in Charters Towers, she rode another treble.
That followed a treble at Barcaldine the week before and another trio of winners at her debut meeting at Longreach on April 28.
That day, the first two rides of her career were winners.
After yesterday, the 18-yearold possesses the record of 13 winners from 19 rides.
“It is like a dream come true. I can’t believe it,” McDonell said.
McDonell is apprenticed to leading bush trainer Todd Austin, with whom she has worked for the past year before attaining her riding licence two days before her Longreach debut.
Meanwhile, Toowoomba trainer Kevin Kemp has promising juvenile Plumaro back in work and on target for the Group 2 Sires Stakes on May 26 and also the Group 1 JJ Atkins on June 9.
Super Mario reigns
A TOUGH effort from the favourite, Super Mario, claimed three points in the third leg of the 2018 Magic Millions FNQ Up and Coming Stayers series at Gordonvale on Saturday.
Super Mario was midfield in running and had some difficulty negotiating the tight home turn but battled hard to win by the narrowest of margins.
Super Mario, a five-year-old gelding by Zabeel from Parole, trained by Cannon Park trainer Fred Wieland and ridden by Amanda Thomson, won by a nose from the Wayne Brady trained Cashed Up Bully, ridden by Chelsea Jokic, and One Sunday for John Rowan and jockey Rachel Shred.
Round 4 of the series will be on the big track in Innisfail later this month in a Benchmark 60 over 1800m.
Apprentice changes
RACING Queensland is planning to trial a change to the apprentice allowance system to give young riders a better career path.
The changes would include apprentices in the metropolitan area being able to claim 3kg until they ride 20 winners, 2kg until they reach 50 winners (currently 40) and 1.5kg until the 80winner mark. Country apprentices will be able to claim 4kg until five winners and then have the 20, 50, 80 progression.