Debuting in the mid 90’s, Murf immediately found a role in A Grade as a steady and reliable middle order contributor with the bat, scoring over 200 runs in A Grade in each of his first 3 seasons at the Club and averaging at least 20 with the bat in each of his first 4 seasons.
Murf reached his peak at the turn of the century when given the opportunity to open the batting, scoring 397 runs @ 26.47 in the 2000/01 season (winning the A Grade Batting Aggregate) and followed that season with 320 runs @ 32.00 in the 2001/02 season. Murf also scored his first and only A Grade century during that patch, making an unbeaten 102* from approximately 120 deliveries in a one day match against Milang on 16th December 2000.
Through the mid 2000’s Murf became more of a part time player before returning for one final, almost full season in 2008/09, playing predominately in B Grade. Despite filling in for the A’s 3 times that season (and scoring 67 in one of those matches), Murf thrived in the B’s, with scores of 56, 135, 40, 67 and 0 to help the B’s secure a finals spot.
Traveling to Echunga for the Semi Final, vice-captain Michael “Pickle” Paech (filling in for captain Jordan Baltman who had an unavoidable Uni assessment) won the toss and elected to bat. Opening himself with a young Liam Bentley who retired hurt early on with the score on 23, Pickle was joined at the crease by Murf and whilst Pickle would go on to make an excellent 72 himself, it was Murf’s day as he and Pickle would put on a partnership of 254 runs with Murf going on to make 230, featuring 31 fours and 3 sixes, as the Echidnas finished the day at 5/448 – funnily enough that was neither the highest individual or team score that season in the B’s, having made a record 6/594 earlier in the season against Maccy at Davenport Square, with Murf’s good mate, Simon “Noons” Nunan, plundering 260 on that occasion. All up, Murf scored 461 runs @ 76.83 in B’s that season and took home the B Grade Batting Average trophy.
Always stylish with the bat, Murf was also an incredibly polished fielder and was voted as the A Grade Best Fielder on at least 3 occasions (1995/96, 1999/00 & 2000/01). Murf was also a two-time A Grade Premiership player (1999/00 – whilst he only made 13, Murf came to the crease with the WCC in all sorts at 4/3 and put on a vital 73 run partnership with Ben Judd to allow the Echidnas to recover and post a winning score of 9/211 – and 2002/03).
Last playing for the club as a fill in during the 2017/18 season, Murf’s son, Noah, has been steadily progressing through the junior ranks at the WCC in recent seasons, playing Under 14’s last season, so with any luck we might not be too far away from seeing Murf un-retire to hopefully play a couple of seasons of lower grade Cricket with Noah in the near future.
All told (for now), Murf played 100 matches for the Echidnas (88 in A Grade), scoring 2,672 runs at 28.73, featuring 3 100’s and 13 50’s. He also took 18 wickets at 27.94 and had 50 catches. In A Grade, he scored 2,056 runs at 24.77.
Well done Murf.
