Geoff Davies First Grade Cap 4 - Penrith Cricket Club
Penrith Cricket Club | June 21, 2025
All the critics said a brilliant career beckoned when Geoff Davies made his Grade debut at just 12 years of age (Randwick fourths) and then played Firsts with the club at 16, but his quickness to frustrate possibly impacted negatively on a career that should have produced much more than just one Test appearance, 12th man against the West Indies in 1968/69 and two second eleven Australian tours to New Zealand, the first when aged 20, another signpost to his extraordinary potential.
He shone for New South Wales as a batting allrounder (First Class: 3903 runs at 36.13, 107 wickets @ 32.18) but when he came to Nepean, it was his bowling that was quite stunning. From the boundary, his gait was slightly ponderous rather than athletic, his stance slightly ugly, yet he was a graceful batsman, a close watcher of the ball, which enabled him to master particularly the finesse shots, the glance and cuts.
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Also, he was a smart slips fielder, from where his sharpish turn of phrase could occasionally startle an unsuspecting batsman.
His crafty leg-spin bowling with all his subtle flight and variable turn, top-spinners and wronguns, simply overwhelmed grade batsmen. He only played three seasons with Nepean, but in that time took a remarkable 140 wickets at 14.74 and hit 1614 runs at 31.03. If there's any justice in the grade game, his season haul of 61 wickets in 1973/74 will never be surpassed. His strike rate that summer was a phenomenal wicket every 28 balls!
He could be an abrasive character. Trevor Wholohan probably still has nightmares about the very rainy Monday night when a business-suited Davies arrived, drenched, bedraggled, mud-spattered and very angry, on his doorstep in Jamison Road, demanding to know, colourfully, what had happened to that night's regular selection meeting scheduled for the Hunter Pavilion at Howell oval. It had been postponed, but no one told Geoff.
As a youth, he was also a talented tennis player, and after cricket, he became very adept at lawn bowls, despite some ongoing health problems.
BeaconPoint Club Clips - The Role of a Club Coach with Michael Haire from Randwick Petersham Cricket Club
