Darren Beckett (Center above)
Fourteenth Life Member of the Shoalhaven Ex-Servicemen's Cricket Club, conferred in 2018
As a player from 1990 - 2012, Darren amassed 1577 runs at 12.52 and
224 wickets at 19.70. His best figures in a match were 13/65 in 1992/93
(3rds), and he is the only Ex-Servicemen player ever to take all 10
wickets in a single innings - 10/30 vs Tomerong in the same match.
Significantly, he also has figures of 5/19 (1sts) and a 7/40 (3rds) as
some of his other notable performances.
Handy with the bat,
Darren holds the record for the second grade 7th wicket of 149 with
George Dickie against Central Districts (2nds) In 1997/98 and has 4 x
half centuries to his name.
At club level, he won the batting
(2nds) in 02/03, bowling (3rds) in 92/93, allrounder (2nds) in 98/99,
player of the year (2nds) in 02/03, and clubman of the year (04/05).
Darren was a member of the second grade side who were one day Champions
in 97/98, and won the premiership in 05/06 in second grade under Warren
Ganderton’s captaincy.
He held a number of other positions at
the club including 3 years as Vice President, joint coach of the u/14
premiership team (08/09) and 2 years as second grade captain.
As a
coach, Darren excelled. A level 2 coach, he coached numerous players at
club, district and zone level and was the SDJCA junior coaching
director for 5 years. Darren was instrumental in setting up our club’s
Milo junior cricket program which still runs today, and has been a great
source of junior recruits for our club.
Darren has also gone
onto coaching at St George cricket club, and a major highlight was in
2007-9 where Darren twice coached the NSW Indigenous women’s side to
winning the national title in the Imparja Cup.
*career stats courtesy of Alan Clark A.M. (SDCA Life Member)