October 31, 2013
It’s a long way from the cricket pitches of Mumbai to a school stage in Kingaroy but a reunion of two Australian cricketers happened in these unusual surroundings on Wednesday night.
Australian cricket star Lisa Sthalekar – the first international woman cricketer to hold the unique double of 1000 runs and 100 wickets in one day internationals – was the guest speaker at the Kingaroy State High School sports awards night.
As guest speaker, she also handed out many of the awards distributed on the evening.
She quickly found herself congratulating fellow Southern Stars player Holly Ferling for winning a silver award for netball and a bronze for cricket!
Lisa spoke to the audience about the highlights and the lowlights of her career, and how she pushed herself to achieve peak fitness.
On one occasion, after failing with the bat and being picked as 12th “man”. she resolved to become the first one selected in future.
“I wanted the captain and selectors to always pick me first,” she said.
“I went away and worked on my game, worked on my strengths and worked on my weaknesses.
“One of the weaknesses was fitness.”
Lisa said she started to bribe herself: “If I do 10 more sprints I can have a chocolate tonight.”
All the training paid off. She made her debut in the 2001 Ashes series, and from that point on the Australian team dominated cricket at the international level for the next four years.
Then a lot of the more experienced players started retiring and Lisa found herself vice-captain.
In 2009, during the World Cup in Sydney, things started to go the wrong way.
“We started to put more pressure on ourselves,” Lisa said.
The team then lost under the Duckworth-Lewis system used to calculate wins in rain-affected matches.
“It was the worst point of my career and also of the Australian team,” she said. “After that I did a lot of soul-searching.”
But just 12 months later, they won the T20 World Cup in the West Indies and then won back the Ashes in 2011.
Lisa retired from international cricket at the beginning of this year, finishing on a high by taking the winning catch to close the Australia v West Indies final in the Women’s World Cup played in Mumbai in February.
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Lisa congratulated each of the young Kingaroy State High School sports stars as they came on stage to collect their trophies and award certificates.
The major award of the evening, the “Bass Blue Memorial Sportsperson of the Year” had seven finalists, each of whom was interviewed on stage by teacher Steve Corstiaans.
After a drum-roll, Lisa announced the winner: Jackie Krosch, who earlier in the night also received the Pierre de Coubertin award.
Jackie excelled over the past 12 months in touch football, basketball, cross-country (setting a school record), athletics (also setting school records), netball, swimming, squash and lawn bowls.
The other nominees for the Bass Blue award were: Sam Johnston, Simon Fairbairn, Hayley Hunter, Peter Hourn, Lane Ferling and Holly Ferling.
The Bass Blue award is assessed on performance in school sports events, so unfortunately for Holly (a previous winner) her Ashes appearance in the United Kingdom didn’t count!
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Other major awards:
Andrew Marsh Memorial Trophy (Cross Country) – Simon Fairbairn
Daniel Schultz Memorial Trophy (Cross Country) – Daniel Bond
DJ Kilkenny Memorial Trophy (Best & Fairest Rugby League) – Sam Johnston
Best & Fairest awards:
15yrs Rugby League – Charles Payne
Year 8 Rugby League – Dean Favier
Open Netballer – Clare Bisley
U15 Netballer – Mia Whye
All Schools Cup Girls Volleyballer – Carly Radburn
All Schools Cup Boys Volleyballer – Jye Hopkins
All Schools Cup Junior Girls Volleyballer – Isabella Neil
All Schools Cup Junior Boys Volleyballer – Ryan Zeller
Open Boys Footballer – Samuel Grey
Open Girls Footballer – Katrina Parsons
U15 Girls Footballer – Isabella Neil
Open Boys Touch Player – Sam Johnston
U15 Boys Touch Player – Adam Geiger
Open Girls Touch Player – Belinda Johnston
U15 Girls Touch Player – Taylah Curley
Open Cricketer – Simon Fairbairn
- Related article: Olympic Effort By Jackie
Past winners of the Bass Blue Award:
| 1974 – Alan Walker 1974 – Margaret Willcocks 1975 – David May 1975 – Belinda Belshaw 1976 – Alan McKewen 1976 – Anne Greenfield 1977 – Michael Pascoe 1977 – Debbie Hobdell 1978 – Russell Smith 1978 – Sue Kiehme 1979 – David Rogerson 1979 – Lisa Ploetz 1980 – Tim Shaw 1980 – Lisa Ploetz 1981 – Brendon Wolski 1981 – Roslyn Larsen 1982 – Don Cameron 1982 – Maryanne Sternberg |
1983 – Dwain Freshwater 1984 – Scott Turner 1984 – Pauline Sternberg 1985 – Trevor Kratzmann 1985 – Rodney Stanley 1985 – Helen Fisher 1986 – Karl Jones 1986 – Jackie Perkins 1987 – Alan Johannessen 1987 – Karen Livingstone 1987 – Robyn Woods 1988 – Michael Wake 1988 – Robyn Woods 1989 – Susan Schultz 1990 – Shane Irving 1991 – Deon Bird 1992 – Christopher Woltmann 1993 – Annette Somerville |
1994 – Peter Woltmann 1995 – Mark Bauer 1996 – Alexander Savage 1997 – Bradley Boynton 1998 – Liam Exelby 1999 – Matthew Ballin 2000 – Mark Oliphant 2001 – Matthew Ballin 2002 – Brett Parker 2003 – Michael Wex 2004 – Shane Rogerson 2005 – Zachary Webber 2006 – Sarah James 2007 – Sarah James 2008 – Kathryn Krosch 2009 – Holly Ferling 2010 – Lauren Askin 2011 – Alexander Dempster 2012 – Gabriella Dempster |
