Paul Maraziotis - thrived on competition and hard work
Paul Ryan | October 23, 2023
Paul Maraziotis was one of the finest batters in NSW Premier Cricket to sadly not be selected to play for class cricket for his state. There are 11,660 First Grade runs, 23 hundreds, 61 half centuries reasons over 21 seasons at an average of 37.49 to suggest he must’ve been very close.
Mazza played 366 innings for Penrith, Bankstown, Blacktown and Sydney and is well placed in the top 10 NSW Premier Cricket Run Scorers of all time. At the time of publication, he sits at No.8.
Born September 1974. Mazza made his first grade debut for Penrith at the age of 18. He played for NSW Under 19’s the following year and lined up against future stars like Ricky Ponting, Michael Divenuto, Andrew Symonds, Brad Hodge, Martin Love just to name a few.
Mazza played his junior cricket for Blacktown Workers Cricket club.
“Blacktown weren’t in the Grade competition at the time and at a presentation night a guy by the name of Bill Ball invited me to trial with Penrith Green Shield. “I got selected and played bowling Left-Arm Chinaman” he says with a smile.
In the same year he played 5th grade for Penrith and had the great fortune of playing alongside former Australian Test and NSW player John Benaud. John Benaud nurtured and mentored many young players as captain for Penrith 5th grade for many years and Paul speaks very fondly of John. He also speaks highly of another John in John Rennie as they both helped mould him into the player he wanted to be.
Mazza number one mentor was his father Arthur, and he speaks openly about the environment the people of Blacktown created for young cricketers at the time.
People like John LeMaire and Bob Smart “I couldn’t have asked for better mentorship in my junior years, we had great junior coaches”.
Mazza playing in Greece on the beautiful island of Corfu.
Mazza laments on the issues young cricketers are challenged with today, “We had great junior coaches in a time where people weren’t as time poor as they are today and could invest more of their time into helping young and aspiring cricketers. “
The mentoring Mazza is thankful for is why he remained actively involved in coaching junior cricket teams.
Whilst he may not have played first class cricket for NSW, Mazza played many years of NSW 2nd XI cricket and in a game against Queensland 2nd XI team which included Mitchell Johnson and Nathan Hauritz, he scored 190.
The 1990’s was a golden period for New South Wales Cricket. For youngsters coming through and trying to break into the State team it wasn’t easy when NSW Shield batting order was Taylor, Slater, Bevan, M.Waugh, S.Waugh, and Trevor Bayliss.
“It was a time when Test Cricketers played a lot more Shield games than they do now and then when they didn’t play the NSW could call on Shane Lee, Chee Quee, Haywood, McNamara, Arnberger and many more. Arnie left NSW and played for Victoria and had a fantastic career. “
“Cricketers in the modern game are blessed with many more opportunities to play higher honours. We only had Sheffield Shield and the One Day format to strive for higher honours. These days there are several BBL franchises to play for either domestically or in other countries as well.”
Mazza thrived on competition and hard work. He loved training with the Blues squad.
“One day we were running up the Wanda Sandhills with our arms linked and I heard a loud complaint being shouted out by the great Mark Waugh “how the hell is this going to help my cover drive? “I remember at the time thinking, he’s got a great point. I can certainly see the value in it now as the strength and fitness of the modern-day players is incredible.”
21 years of Premier Cricket and a lot of memories and experiences.
Early on in Mazza’s career he learned about the battle, and that first grade wasn’t for the faint hearted.
“I remember absolutely nailing a cover drive into Steve Small’s shin who was fielding at silly point one day and I said “Sorry, are you ok”. He didn’t flinch one bit and shouted back “you just fxxcken bat”.
“Another day at Nth Sydney I was fielding at 2nd slip. Steve Nikitaras was bowling and found Scott Hookey’s edge. I unfortunately dropped the catch. The next ball was one of those skidding short balls at serious pace which struck Scott in the head and knocked him out. I was then the victim of abuse from not only my bowler, but also from the struck batsman when he came to as he was being carried off. Somehow, this became my fault for dropping the catch one ball earlier. One thing I can say is that even with that generally aggressive and combative on-field approach, we always made time to have a beer with the opposition team (and umpires) after the game.”
One of Mazza’s proudest moments came in his 30’s when his first-class dreams had passed him by and he had the opportunity to return to where it all began, as Captain of the Blacktown Cricket Club.
Retiring at the age of 39, does Mazza have any regrets?
“As hard as I worked, I was never as good as the State and Test Players but geez it was fun playing with and against them. I can honestly say that I’ve made some great friends through this great game of ours and am privileged to be still involved and be able to put back in where I can and allow them to have as much fun as I had.”
Well played Mazza.
Well written, Paul.
'Mazza' comes across as a terrific cricketer but born at the wrong time. Yet, so devoted to the game and holds no bitterness.
Enjoyed reading it, tremendously.
If you are able to post the Top 10 run-getters and wicket-takers in Grade cricket sometime in the future that would be educational.
Thanks