Dylan Kight reflects on his decorated career at Footscray ahead of game 250
Dylan Kight celebrated his 250th Premier Cricket match for Footscray with a win and entered an elite group in the process.
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It’s been quite the month for Dylan Kight.
The Footscray great celebrated his 250th Premier Cricket match with a win over Geelong on Saturday, playing a starring role.
The Bulldogs great snaffled five catches and was in the middle as the winning runs were hit, finishing 23 not out, to wrap up a four-wicket win.
Almost every weekend has been a celebration of late.
In the return from the Christmas break, Kight smashed through the 400-dismissal barrier – just the 12th wicketkeeper to achieve the feat in competition history.
In the next match, his 248th, he surpassed Rainer Reber to move into second on the club’s First XI games record list, behind only Dean Russ’ 307.
He then scored his seventh First XI century last round against Melbourne.
Speaking before the clash against Geelong, Kight said it was all a bit surreal.
“It’s pretty crazy, I definitely didn’t picture this for myself when I started out,” Kight said.
“Everything seems daunting at the start, so to play one game and then one season was the goal, so to get 250 is pretty surreal.”
Kight’s name is all over the record books at Merv Hughes Oval.
The second most games played, the fourth most runs scored and the second most dismissals.
His 110 from 157 deliveries against Melbourne saw him move to 6361 runs, while he now has 413 wicketkeeper dismissals.
The five catches saw him enter the Premier Cricket all-time top-10, surpassing Collingwood’s Ian McKenzie, but still some way from chasing Reber’s club record of 447.
Kight isn’t one to take too much notice of the stats.
“Shaun Rogers, our statistician, told me I’d gone over 400, I had no idea,” he said.
“It’s more of a reflection on our bowlers, it’s hard for a keeper to be judged by dismissals because you can’t do much if the bowlers aren’t getting edges.
“It’s nice but I don’t love it that wicketkeepers just get judged on their dismissals.
“I like to chip in with the bat, that’s cricket these days, you can’t just be a wicketkeeper and bat down the order, so I always pride myself on my batting.”
It’s no surprise then that the club’s triumph, the 2013-14 premiership, is the crowning glory in his career.
Kight made an important 57 in the grand final, putting on a 158-run third-wicket partnership with Travis Dean before taking three catches behind the stumps.
“We wanted to win a premiership at the start of the year but we were more looking at the next season,” Kight said
“We wanted to make big strides and one thing led to another and we had an unbelievable run of momentum.
“We’ve been close a few times and being a regular finals contender has been good, getting the Footscray name back up there.”
Kight made his Victoria debut in 2013 alongside Russ in a tour match against England Lions, which featured Ben Stokes, and faced the West Indies in 2015 alongside Dean.
Coming through with and against each other as 14-year-olds, Dean and Kight have been almost inseparable.
While Dean was Werribee, Kight came through VSDCA club Melton, winning a Subbies premiership-championship double in 2008-09 before making the move to Footscray.
“Trav and I started playing against each other and with each other, I think 20 years now we’ve been playing together,” Kight said.
“Since I got to the club I played 220-odd games with Dean Russ and Lucas Dredge and Hamish Winter-Irving would be a 100-plus games too.”
Having debuted for Footscray in 2009 as a specialist bat, Kight joked that taking the wicketkeeping gloves off Russ was one of the key reasons behind him reaching 300 games.
He’s been behind the stumps every game since 2010.
He’s taken seven catches in an innings and nine in a match, both equal second most in Premier Cricket history.
He’s seen some of Premier Cricket’s best roll the arm over from the other end of the pitch, but a couple standout.
“Jake Haberfield would be the best, he fed me for a couple of years, which was nice,” Kight said.
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“From a spinners point of view, we had Jeremy Hart for a couple of seasons and he took a mountain of wickets.
“Having someone who can turn the ball like he did was great and we probably took that for granted a little bit.”
Kight will assess his playing future at season’s end, saying if he is to go on it will likely be with Footscay or he’ll hang up the gloves.
When that time comes, he’ll have left a lasting legacy of excellence.
Ben Roosenboom claimed 5-26 to help dismiss Geelong for 145 on day one last week, Dean (34), Aiman Nadeem (34) and Mitch Jamieson (33) then made critical contributions with the bat to steer the Dogs home.
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