Looking back at the five best individual performances of the 2015-16 Haisman Shield season

So here’s a list of the five performances that lit up the Haisman Shield during the 2015-16 season.

5) Ben Reece (Kyabram)

Ben Reece’s time in Cricket Shepparton was fleeting, but boy did he make an impact.

The English all-rounder spent two seasons at Kyabram, doing enough to pocket a Lightfoot Medal, the A-grade bowling award and a spot in the team of the year in the before jetting back overseas.

He started his Lightfoot campaign by cutting the strings, taking 22 wickets in the first five games.

In the fourth of that purple patch, Reece went berserk.

The left arm orthodox almost single-handedly skittled Shepparton Youth Club United for 162, taking every kind of wicket imaginable.

Big Ben chimed seven times, closing out the innings with 7-60 as Kyabram won comfortably.

4) Chris Keady (Karramomus)

What a shock it is that Chris Keady makes this list.

One of the best to do it in Cricket Shepparton, Keady was towards the twilight of his career 10 seasons ago, but he still had match-winning cameos in his bag of tricks.

A prime example of this was against Katandra.

Karramomus was defending an average total of 167, Keady top scoring with 43, and the six-time Lightfoot Medallist grabbed the new ball, gave it a shine and said ‘hold my cap and watch this’.

Keady blitzed the top order and hoovered up the tail, finishing on 6-19 and helping bowl out the Eagles for 116.

If that’s Keady near the end of his cricketing tenure, I’d hate to see what he was serving up in his prime.

3) Liam Gledhill (Numurkah)

He may have missed out on the Lightfoot Medal in 2015-16, but Liam Gledhill was undoubtedly a champion in every other regard.

Gledhill, widely respected as one of Numurkah’s greatest players of the modern era, had his second-best year with the stick in a career that bore close to 10,000 runs, leading the run-scoring charts a decade ago with 662.

Remarkably, he managed to collate more than a fifth of those in one game.

Batting first, Numurkah navigated an early wobble when Gledhill got to the crease and began exposing the cork on the cricket ball, steering the Blues to 9-306 with the big all-rounder chalking up 136 before finding the fielder’s hands.

Gledhill would eventually claim that elusive Lightfoot two seasons later, backing it up with a 45-year drought breaking premiership with Numurkah the following year.

2) Grant Hutchins (Northerners)

Though it doesn’t field an A-grade side in 2025-26, Northerners were a powerhouse of the Haisman Shield during the 2010s.

And though he now suits up for Katandra, Grant Hutchins delivered one of the Jets’ most compelling bowling displays of the decade.

Hutchins jagged 35 wickets for the season - only six shy of his run tally - and up against Kyabram, the left armer took devastation to a whole new level during a 23.2 over spell.

Here’s the cold, hard numbers.

Seven wickets, seven maidens and an economy rate of 1.72, totalling 7-40 as Northerners rolled the Redbacks for 158 after posting 9-274.

1) Jahlan Lau (Numurkah)

Ten years later and still going strong, Jahlan Lau is a staple of the Haisman Shield.

The Numurkah icon brought up his 300th club game earlier this season, though it was a decade ago when he plundered his highest ever career score in a smashing of Tatura.

Stepping up to the crease at second drop, Lau wasted no time taking to the Tatura bowlers and stitching together run after run, raising the bat not once, not twice, but three times on the way to a mammoth knock of 174.

The lifelong Blue forged a formidable partnership with fellow centurion Matthew Alldis (103 not out) as Numurkah piled on 5-355 to close out the season.

Talk about laying down the Lau.