Club history

The ground

The club plays at the Trentham Sportsground Reserve on Falls Road, the oval it shares with the Trentham District Football Netball Club and which the local press has long called McCashney Oval. Hepburn Shire lists the reserve as home to both clubs. Its pavilion was redeveloped recently, with rooms for 160, a kitchen and bar, and female-friendly change rooms for players and umpires.

Early days

Trentham’s cricket past reaches back to the 1880s. The town’s collection holds a photograph of the Mountaineers Cricket Club dated to around 1882 to 1891, a Trentham Cricket Club team photo from 1935 and a member’s ticket for the 1946–47 season, all reproduced in the Trentham Trumpet in December 2021. The football club that shares the ground was formed in 1892 and took the Saints name and St Kilda colours in 1959, the red, black and white the cricket club wears too.

The Castlemaine years

The club’s own scorebooks run from 2007–08, when only two results survive, through the seasons in the Castlemaine District Cricket Association, playing the likes of Daylesford, Elphinstone, Newstead, Guildford, Muckleford and Barkers Creek. The club grew fast: 2015–16 remains its biggest season on record, 54 games and 63 players across the senior and junior grades, 29 wins, nearly 7,000 runs, Jake Sartori’s 584 runs and Jake Prewett’s 34 wickets. The year before, John Cowell took 7 for 19, still the club’s best bowling figures alongside Sartori’s own 7 for 19 in 2019–20.

The 2016–17 season ended with both senior sides in the semi-finals, and Chris Boyer took the Bill O’Connell Medal as club champion, with Adam Prewett the best bowler in A Reserve, Tim Chew the best player in B Grade and Alistair Thompson best clubman.

Into the GDCA

For 2017–18 the club made what the Advocate called “the big move” to the Gisborne and District Cricket Association, entering a First XI in C Grade and a Second XI in E Grade. The First XI won five games in its first season there and finished with a famous chase: 335 against second-placed Woodend, run down with three wickets and three overs to spare. It was the last open-age game for club veteran Mark Reid, who retired after a long career at Trentham.

Player numbers dropped the next season and the club went to one senior side, but it kept producing moments. The shortened 2019–20 summer was perfect: eight games, eight wins, Chris Boyer 421 runs and an unbeaten hundred, Jake Sartori 23 wickets. In December 2018 the Saints bowled Wallan out for 97 and replied with 240 in a two-day game at McCashney Oval, John Cowell taking 3 for 18 and life member Adam Prewett 3 for 23. In February 2019 Trentham chased top side Hanging Rock’s 184 for the loss of two wickets, Harley Forgo 104 not out and Dolf Reid 89, after new recruit Jason Shaw had taken 6 for 30. Prewett led the association’s wicket tally that summer.

Records

Across 289 senior games on record the Saints have won 158, lost 127 and drawn 4, scoring 40,585 runs and taking 2,283 wickets. Harley Forgo holds the most runs (3,713) and the highest score (136, in 2022–23); Adam Prewett the most wickets (299, one short of 300 at the start of 2026–27) and the most catches (67); Chris Boyer the best average among the heavy scorers (46.47 from 3,485 runs). Gavin Thomson’s 623 runs in 2023–24 is the most in a season, and that year’s 17 wins from 23 games the best season since the records began. The full lists are on the stats page.

Juniors and today

By 2021 the club had three junior teams in the GDCA, and it now runs Cricket Blasters for five to nine year olds, an Under 11 and an Under 13 side alongside the First XI, with a dedicated Child Safety Officer. The club’s records moved onto PlayHQ from the 2023–24 season, which is where the player stats on this site begin. In 2026–27 the First XI plays in Jensen Shield North B, the Under 13s in Boys U13 West and the Under 11s in Mixed U11 West.