He’s a keeper: Heath Pyke’s remarkable run with Wendouree Cricket Club
Even at age 39 and with many memorable matches behind him, legendary Victorian country cricketer Heath Pyke continues to set the standard for his club and competition.
Wendouree Cricket Club in Ballarat is nicknamed the Redcaps.
And in red-haired Heath Pyke, it has a captain on whom the cap fits cosily.
The colours of Wendouree and its champion batter and wicketkeeper are a perfect match, unfading across more than two decades.
Pyke’s performances have brought him enduring acclaim in his local association and freshly minted hall-of-fame status in the Victorian Country Cricket League (VCCL).
The VCCL gong recognised his efforts for the Victorian team at the national country championships and noted his involvement at Melbourne Country Week.
He scored a century in his first match for the Vics, at Mildura in 2007.
Since then, big scores have come to him in club cricket with a regularity that prompts Ballarat association president David Nichols to refer to him as a “Bradman of the bush’’.
The way Wendouree chairman of selectors Matt Jones figures it, his club can go into a season confidently expecting two centuries from Pyke. “You can almost pencil them in,’’ he says.
A few weeks into 2024-25, Pyke, 39, already has one. It came on November 2 against Buninyong, 100 not out.
Last season, Pyke hit a matchwinning 105 not out against Bacchus Marsh.
In 2022-23, he cracked 105 in the grand final against East Ballarat. It’s not one he likes to talk about: the Redcaps were shaken out cheaply in the second innings and lost on a reverse outright.
“It still burns,’’ Pyke, an engineer and father-of-two living in the Ballarat town of Alfredton, says.
He has scored more than 8000 runs for Wendouree, including an innings of 270 not out.
It came in January, 2009, against North Ballarat. The Redcaps started the second day of the match in front on the first innings and chose to bat on … and on.
When Pyke reached his century, skipper Matt Skinner asked him if he wanted to retire and give someone else a hit.
“F**k that,’’ he replied, mindful of a tiring attack, a “smallish’’ ground at St Patrick’s College and the need to “go big’’ whenever the chance arose. He went on to make the highest First XI score in the club’s history.
“I well and truly cashed in,’’ Pyke says. “It was one of those days. As most batsmen will attest, there are days where you go in and find that sweet spot and you don’t feel you’re going to get out. Cole Roscholler, who is our current opener, we always used to joke about it, when you get that opportunity, cash in and make a big one, because you don’t know when the next one’s coming.’’
Pyke also owns two other innings in the Wendouree top 10: 173 against Mt Clear in 2020-21 and 161 against Coronet City in 2006-07. He has another 150-plus score – 156 against Ballarat-Redan in 2014-15.
Jones says the Wendouree captain gets his runs “all over the park’’.
“He gets himself set,’’ he says of the right-hander nicknamed “Sauce’’. “He can build an innings. But he can tee off from the get-go as well.’’
Former Redcaps and Victorian Premier opener Mathew Begbie captains Buninyong. He played at Wendouree with Pyke and says he’s a fine cricketer and “fierce competitor’’.
“He’s someone who has been consistent for a long time. He makes big scores. He’s capable of batting for long periods of time but he can also take a game away from you pretty quickly,’’ he says. “He has all the gears and all the shots. Tough as nails too.’’
And his wicketkeeping? Begbie says he’s still one of the best in the association. “I haven’t seen him drop too many, and very rarely do you see him make a mistake,’’ he says.
That grand final loss three years ago was a rarity for Pyke. His runs and his keeping have helped his club win a string of premierships. He has played in seven winning grand final teams – in 2003-04, 2008-09, 2009-10, 2010-11, 2011-12, 2012-13 and 2016-17 – four as captain.
“I loved my time here,’’ he says. “Been very fortunate, from a success perspective, to come along at a great era of the club. We’ve had plenty of quality players in the time that I’ve been around.’’
Pyke has been in Wendouree’s First XI since the age of 15.
He had started playing cricket at Wendouree Primary with the Under 12s, batting and bowling what he calls “little dibbly-dobbly’’ medium pace.
A fractured collarbone playing football pushed him into wicket keeping. His team was short on numbers and he didn’t want it to forfeit, so he decided to jump in behind the wickets.
“I said, ‘Give me the gloves, I can’t really do any more damage to it’,’’ he recalls. “It went from there. I got the bug. I started to train it and really want to be a wicketkeeper. That was the best decision I made, to hip-and-shoulder a kid in footy and do my collarbone.’’
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In his first season in Wendouree’s top team, Pyke shared the gloves with David Knight, who had returned to Ballarat after a sparkling Sub-District career with Caulfield.
He says now that the arrangement was a blessing: he kept every second match, gaining experience, and he could also absorb knowledge from watching Knight.
“That was the best thing for both of us at that stage,’’ Pyke says.
“It was ideal for him, being a bit more of a veteran, and also for me to have someone of that ilk to learn off.’’
After establishing himself in the Ballarat association, Pyke had a dash at Victorian Premier Cricket and three years of club cricket in the UK.
Travelling from Ballarat, he spent the 2004-05 and 2005-06 seasons with Essendon, playing alongside such notables as Matthew Innes, Clint McKay, Craig Berger and Ben Fletcher.
He had 12 matches and a highest score of 46.
Pyke enjoyed his time with the Bombers, appreciating the higher standard of cricket, but the days and nights on the road got the better of him.
“The commute up and back – and this is the case for a lot of country boys – it wears thin after a while,’’ he says.
“It doesn’t go well with the commitment level required to succeed in that sort of cricket.
“There is part of it where you look back to a degree and think, ‘What could have been?’ If you don’t shift down it makes it hard to make every post a winner. It was bloody hard work for a period there. Trying to make ends meet on a Tuesday and Thursday from a work perspective, to be able to get to training on time.
“You were burning the candles at both ends, not getting home until 10, 10.30 on a Thursday night, then doing it all again on a Saturday morning. If you’re kicking off at 10am and you’re playing at Frankston, for example, you’re leaving home at 6.30, 7am.’’
With Kris Bardon having custody of the gloves, Pyke was picked at Essendon purely for his batting.
It did not bother him. Many people attest to the certainty of his keeping – Jones calls him a “one of the best glovemen you’ll see in country cricket; such fast hands’’ – but he came to see himself as a batter first, with wicket keeping “my second fiddle’’.
Still, for a decade, starting with the 2007 national championships in Mildura, he was Victorian Country’s wickie.
Pyke always regarded the nationals as an annual opportunity to experience the level of cricket he had seen in Premier ranks.
After booking in a fortnight of annual leave, he prepared assiduously and played determinedly. And in time he became Victoria’s games record-holder, surpassing Geelong Brad Hauenstein (last season Gippsland all-rounder Lee Stockdale overtook Pyke’s tally of 52).
“I prioritised representative cricket. Not discounting club cricket, but I saw the value in going away and playing two weeks of hard-nosed, competitive cricket similar to what you got down in Melbourne, but without having to make the sacrifices’’ he says.
“Leading up to a carnival you could probably put in two months, a month-and-a-half of hard work in terms of honing your craft, hitting balls and catching balls and whatnot. You’d come up against some great players from opposition states who went on to play state cricket. It was really competitive, tough cricket.’’
He found that our early, playing 100-over days in two-day matches while sweating it out in scorching, unrelenting Mildura heat. There was no let-up, backing up four days in a row.
His time with the Vics ended abruptly and disappointingly.
Pyke was a good footballer, reaching TAC Cup level with the North Ballarat Rebels and playing in a senior premiership with local club Lake Wendouree.
One year he tore a hamstring in a final and missed the early exchanges of the cricket season. Returning well before the national titles, he made himself available for the Vics. But the selectors, worried he wouldn’t get through the carnival, overlooked him.
“It was a bitter pill to swallow, to be honest,’’ Pyke says. “I didn’t think my time touring gave me a right to be selected. But I felt I was still fit enough and still good enough to go away and play.’’
Pyke’s Victorian commitments came at a cost to his Melbourne Country Week involvement. He could not do both. He’s made a few trips to Melbourne, including last season, and he’ll have his hand up for the Ballarat association’s 2024-25 team.
“Similar to the country championships, it’s great getting away with people you wouldn’t normally socialise with,’’ he says.
“You don’t see them as a mate or a friend because you’re going head to head with them on a Saturday. When you go away with them you share a common interest – the love of the game, the enjoyment of the game – and most of the time you’ll strike up a friendship over a cold one at the end of the day.’’
Pyke says he’s always played the game hard but fair. “I love a bit of a scrap, to be honest. I wouldn’t do anything to win but you’re out there to compete.’’
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The Redcaps will have a new captain for the next few matches.
While keeping last Saturday, Pyke broke the ring finger on his left hand.
It happened in the fifth over but he stayed out there. The following day he dropped down the order, hoping he wouldn’t have to bat. He did, going in at No. 8 and steering his side to victory.
The break was confirmed on Monday.
“Being a wicketkeeper, I had a fair idea something was wrong with it,’’ Pyke says. “It was one of those ones where the seam goes sideways and it just sauces. It rose up down the leg-side. My vision wasn’t great. It got big on me at the last moment and hit me smack-bang on the end of the finger and flew down to fine leg. I’ve done plenty of them over the years but not this bad. Usually they’re manageable. This one is a good one. The joys of being a wicketkeeper…’’
He’s wondering how he’ll cope without cricket. “It’s kicked the arse out of me,’’ he says.
Clearly, Pyke’s passion for the game still pulses. He says he wants to play First XI cricket at Wendouree “for as long as I can’’: “I’m still bloody loving competing.’’
The red cap, then, will continue to fit him for a while yet.
PYKE’S PICK
The best players he’s seen in country cricket
“There have been so many. When I was younger, in my formative years before going to Melbourne, it was great to head down to Melbourne Country Week and play against blokes like Heath Behrens from Bendigo. He was a bloody good batsman.
“Paul Bradley from Mornington Peninsula … a lot of these blokes I ended up playing with (for the Vic Country team). They helped me see what you could do as a country cricketer, without necessarily having to go down town to play. All the way through I’ve seen players who could have played well in Melbourne quite comfortably.
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“I went away with Chris Bambury, a really good batsman, Brad Hauenstein, who was such an underrated player from Geelong, Chris Hopper from Horsham, a bloody good spinner who played some cricket at Footscray, Cam Taylor from Bendigo, Lee Stockdale, Sam Miller from up here.
“In his first tour he (Miller) to a degree kickstarted his state career. He got a hundred batting at No. 7 because he couldn’t make a run at the top of the order. It was over in the Barossa in South Australia, where he ended up going.
“He put some smoke signals out to the SACA clubs and they got in touch that following season and he went over there and made a bit of a fist of it. The other two would be Matt Cape from Darley and Bobby Wilson from the Mornington Peninsula.’’
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