By Mikayla van Loon
As a young boy choosing cricket despite growing up in an Irish household, Shane ‘Donna’ Donovan was all in from the moment he stepped foot on the pitch.
The Mooroolbark Cricket Club player has now gone from instrumental team mate and beloved coach to club legend after reaching a milestone of 400 games.
As only the fourth player in Mooroolbark’s club history to do so, Donna said he felt privileged to be among some of the greats, achieving something he never thought possible.
“It wasn’t in my wildest dreams, not as a young fella. It was hard just getting a bowl to start with, you had to earn your stripes,” he said.
“The day (of the 400th) was lovely, which is not something I’d normally say. It’s pretty humbling.
“There were a lot of emotions in joining three club legends. Bob Gatherham, he was my junior administrator and Ian Stewart, who really helped me in the seniors. He’s the first captain who really gave me a go and I learned a lot from him off the field too and Ken (Trollope), goes without saying. He’s an icon.
“So it was pretty humbling, which people here probably don’t expect that word from me.”
Playing in the Fifth XI side on Saturday 11 January, Donna marked the milestone with a guard of honour made up of friends and players, which he walked through alongside his father Jerry who “in the last five years has finally got the grasp of the game”, he said jokingly.
Joining the 400 game club adds to Donna’s other achievement of being the “only man in 138 years to captain three flags”.
On the field, Donna said “I’ll never call myself a batter” but rather “a run scorer or a dirty slogger” and a “slow swing” bowler.
But back in the day he said he became known for his regular commentary on the field.
“He’s very well known for commentating when he bats. Not so much anymore because he doesn’t score as many runs as when he was younger, but people still know him for that,” good friend and fellow player Bryn Griffiths said.
Donna would often tell the other team’s fielders where they should stand to catch him out or give them pointers on bowling while playing, something he said was of course, all in good fun.
In describing Donna as a player, all Bryn could say was he was “very unique”.
“When he was, probably 20s and 30s and dominating threes and fours, very unique. Not a batsman but a run scorer. He played every ball on its merits, like every ball was a bad ball, so he’d try and belt it over the top of mid wicket and was pretty successful,” he said.
“He was the same as a bowler, pretty confident, swung the ball of heap and the commentary was unique.
“So everyone knew the commentary when he was bowling. If it was a good ball and even if they played a good shot, it’d be ‘ah he’s played a good ball well’. In the batting, every ball was just commentated, where he got, he’d tell them where to bowl the next one or tell them where to put the fielder.”
Seeing the ups and downs of the club when team numbers were limited and the strength of club stalwarts to turn it around, Donna said has made for an incredible environment.
While still enjoying his playing days, Donna has mostly turned his attention to coaching the juniors for 11 years and running the blasters program for 17 seasons.
“Some of these kids are cricket mad, and for that hour (in blasters), you want to make it the best experience for them,” Donna said.
“And then what happens when they come along and play under 10s or under 12s, we’re the first meeting point in the club for the parents and you want them to go, ‘oh, wow, this is great’.”
For Bryn, that’s where Donna has made the biggest impression on the club – supporting the youngest players through the club, especially as they make their debut in seniors.
“He won’t say it but that’d be one of the biggest things we praise him on. So blokes ranging from 16,17, now up to 44, 45 have come through under 16s with him as a mentor.
“There’s a bit of a big step coming from being protected in juniors to playing with men against men away from mum and dad and all that sort of thing.
“And he’s been really brilliant over about 30 years of bringing all those kids through, so a scattering of people, from a from my age down to 15, 16, we’ve all gone through that same journey of coming out of under 16s playing in the threes or fours with Donna, getting introduced to senior cricket and senior teams.”
But more than teaching the next generation of cricketers, Donna said it’s the people, the friendships and camaraderie that keeps him hooked and involved.
“Everyone should feel blessed. So every morning you wake up, it’s a good morning, even if it seemed bad at the time, but we’re pretty blessed to be able to do this.”
