The News ranks its top five solo performances in Haisman Shield so far this season

Which begs the question: which was the best?

From sublime screw-turning to punchy pinch-hitting, a catalogue of gorgeous tons and healthy hauls has graced the league since the first coin toss in early October.

And so, the cricket brains in the News’ sports team selected the top five displays in this season’s Haisman Shield that we could only dream of achieving with a bit of wood or leather between our busy palms.

5) Chaz dazzles Waaia

The “Chaz” appeared to have an A-grade cheat code during Tatura’s round-six clash against Waaia.

In a low-scoring two-day affair, the Bombers won the toss and elected to bat at Waaia Recreation Reserve.

The decision was the first mistake of many for Waaia that day as a young and confident Tatura side ripped through the Bombers’ experienced and talented batting line-up.

The catalyst for said ripping was the “Chaz”.

Cheatley was in full control of the ball, the pitch and the game as he proceeded to take wicket-after-wicket-after-wicket and then some.

Tatura’s strike bowler must have had a career-best day with ball in hand as he finished the innings with figures of 8-28 from 14.4 overs, with six maidens and an economy rate of 1.9.

Cheatley was also varied in his method of scalps, with five being caught, two batters being bowled and one LBW.

4) Playing the long Con-nor

On day one of the Central Park-St Brendan’s clash with Pine Lodge, things weren’t going to plan in the Tigers’ top order until Connor Hayes arrived to steady — and essentially solely direct — the ship.

Fourteen fours and a six made a great start, but Hayes still had to leg out well over half of the terrific 144 he put on the scoreboard to completely take the game away from the visiting Lodgers — with no doubt left once Jarrod Wakeling was done with them.

So content were Tyler Larkin’s men with Hayes’ barnstorming show of dominance that they were happy to declare the moment he was finally caught out off Travis Waters.

It served as an emphatic return to prominence for the Tiger in his second stint at the club after spending five years playing Vic Premier cricket with Greenvale.

Having notched highly respectable scores of 48, 48 and 76 in the three Haisman Shield innings since, you would be mighty unwise to suggest this was a fluke either.

3) Trower shows his power

Old Students suffered arguably the biggest loss of the 2024-25 season in round 10.

The catalyst? A rampant Jesse Trower.

Waaia’s wizard has been deadly with the Kookaburra this season.

His line and length bowling has caused 25 Haisman Shield cricketers to storm off to the sheds this summer.

Against Old Students, Waaia did its damage early on day one, blasting 321 runs in the two-day fixture, with Trower picking up one wicket before stumps.

Come day two, Trower was at his batter-scalping best, finishing with 4-27 from 17 overs with six maidens and an economy of 1.58 in the first innings.

Old Students were bowled out for 87 early in the day and were sent back in to bat, trailing by 234 runs.

In the second innings, Trower raised his dominance a notch ... or three.

The Bombers’ gun took an incredible 6-8 from 16.1 overs with 10 maidens and an economy of 0.49 to help skittle Old Students for 57 and win the match by an innings and 177 runs.

2) Mueller’s magic

Kyle Mueller clearly hasn’t had anything resembling a problem scoring runs this season.

Having already tallied 600 big ones in Haisman Shield, including three centuries, the bat belonging to Kyabram’s master blaster sports more cherries than the produce aisle at Coles on Christmas.

However, during his crafting of one of those tons, Mueller made a triple bat raise look like shelling peas in round eight.

It wasn’t against minnows, either.

Kyabram, taking on a fellow Haisman Shield power Waaia, was set a meagre target of 126 and Mueller wasted little time surpassing the score on his lonesome.

The ‘Wiz’ carved, cut and chipped away until he reached 150 not out, bringing up his third lift of the willow with a wicked maximum to end the game.

Mueller waxed the 150 off 163 balls with nine fours and half-a-dozen sixes sprinkled in, making it the highest total in the Haisman Shield since his own knock of 158 last season.

1) Jarrod ‘Wakes’ up to KO Lodgers

Jarrod Wakeling has set a comfortable standard for Haisman Shield bowlers this season and his clear competition-best wicket haul was supercharged one fine day at Central Park.

With the Deakin Reserve wicket still unavailable, Central Park-St Brendan’s welcomed Pine Lodge to the east of town and, after Connor Hayes produced a superb day one performance to turn up the heat, Wakeling almost single-handedly procured an outright across two innings.

Day two was where he really stole the headlines for himself — scarcely believable at the time, given Hayes’ heroics the previous week.

Already five down when play resumed, Pine Lodge was far from ready for Wakeling’s exploits as he skittled the second half of its batting order before coming agonisingly close to doing the entire job on his own in the follow-on.

Wakeling staggeringly took all eight wickets in the Lodgers’ second go-around, recording a superb 13 wickets for the day of cricket which featured three batters falling to him twice on one afternoon.

It was a spell which is poised to go down in the annals of Cricket Shepparton folklore — after all, people were looking into single-day records even while he was still bowling.