Premier Cricket: Peter Cassidy on the spot and on the job for Dandy
Recruited from Prahran, where he had played in the seconds and thirds, the medium-pacer has become one of Premier Cricket’s most reliable bowlers.
South East
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He shuffles in off 12 steps.
He is barely medium pace.
He looks an easy proposition for batsmen.
But when it comes to Dandenong right-armer Peter Cassidy, it pays to look again.
Quietly, steadily and above all accurately, Cassidy, 25, has in the past three years established himself as one of Victorian Premier Cricket’s most reliable, and frugal, bowlers.
His return against Fitzroy-Doncaster in the first match after the Christmas break served as a neat summary of his service to the Panthers: 10 overs, one maiden, three wickets at a cost of 18 runs.
This in a one-dayer against a strong batting line-up.
All three of his victims were trapped LBW, reflecting Cassidy’s ability to arrow in on the stumps.
Lions great Peter Dickson was his first wicket, for 15, holding him up in his quest for his 10,000 Premier runs (he needs 102 more).
When Cassidy joined Dandenong in 2015-16, the club wasn’t exactly dashing off a press release to announce it.
He came from Prahran, where he had mainly been a batsman – “a slow one,’’ he said with a chuckle – in the seconds and thirds.
Tellingly, he did not bowl a single over in his bottom-age year playing for the South East Bayside Breakers in the Under 18 state championships.
But Cassidy said he did a lot of bowling as a junior, perhaps explaining his accuracy, and took it more seriously in his last two years at Prahran.
Still, he said, “they always said I wasn’t quick enough to be a proper First XI bowler’’.
Cassidy lost interest in cricket in his final year at Prahran and intended to join his great mate Navin Cooray at Subbies club Brighton (he had attended Brighton Grammar).
Navin’s brother, Charith, was playing at Dandy and urged Cassidy to try his luck at the Panthers.
“He thought I should give it one more go at District cricket,’’ he said. ‘I was like, ‘Nah, not really, I don’t want to play it’. Then Ross (former Panthers coach Ross Woodall) called and said they were keen to have me. I sort of went under ‘Banksy’s’ (fast bowler Brent Fairbanks) wing. It went from there.’’
It has worked out better than anyone could have imagined.
Cassidy started in the seconds, as a bowler, took 17 cheap wickets and gained a First XI debut against Geelong in Round 10. A haul of 4-36 off 18 overs against Melbourne University was a hint of what was ahead.
In Dandy’s premiership season of 2017-18, he jagged 34 wickets at 15.7 and with an economy rate of 2.5, with a best of 6-30 off 18.1 overs against Northcote at Shepley Oval. Some batsmen would find it easier to hit Floyd Mayweather.
In the grand final against Fitzroy-Doncaster he had returns of 2-21 off eight overs and 2-29 off 15, maintaining pressure after speedy salvos from Test men Peter Siddle and Darren Pattinson.
Cassidy said “a lot of questions and a lot of hard work’’ was behind his emergence.
Most of the questions have been directed to senior man James Nanopoulos, who knows a bit about medium-pace bowling: he’s taken more than 300 wickets for the Panthers.
Cassidy said Nanopoulos, wicketkeeper Jacques Augustin and captain Tom Donnell had constantly encouraged him.
“It took me a long time to realise who I was as a cricketer, what my skills were, what my ability was, not trying to be someone else,’’ he said.
“The season we lost to Melbourne in a final, in (coach Nick Speak’s) first year (2016-17), I started to work it out, how I bowl.
“I try to be consistent. I don’t care about pace at all. I know I’m not fast. It’s more about accuracy and tying batsmen down.’’
Cassidy was unheralded when he landed at Dandenong.
Now he’s underrated, says his teammate and great mate Augustin, who often stands up to the stumps to the right-armer, keeping batsmen back and bringing the LBW into play.
“Teams come up against him and probably think, ‘We can get stuck into him’,’’ Augustin said.
“But he’s on to them. I’m not going to put him in the ilk of James Nanopoulos yet … but he’s very valuable with his consistency.’’
Dickson said Cassidy had become a “really good Premier cricketer’’.
“He’s crafty, he nibbles it around a bit and he hits the wicket a bit harder than you think, which can rush batsmen,’’ he said.
“He’s a bloody good competitor too. Doesn’t have much to say on the ground but you know he’s up for the contest. He’s the sort of bloke you want on your team.’’