A Grade 2/115 defeated Normanhurst-Warrawee 113 – a special mention to Ankit Grover and James Partridge for making their A grade debuts today. Congratulations fellas !!

We started the day without our fearless leader Justin Paterson who decided that he needed some time alone to find himself. Problem was he didn’t know what to do with himself and couldn’t leave us alone sending at least 30 or 40 messages through the day asking for score updates

James Makin took the reins and showed he still has what it takes with his calm, controlled, balding nature.

There was a little bit of moisture around last night so as good experienced Captains do, James consulted with his team mates and agreed the best thing to do was to bowl first. After an over or two we realised that James decision to bowl first was the reason he gets paid the big bucks by WPHCCC, there was no moisture at all and was playing like an absolute belter.

The bowlers however, did an absolutely amazing job today under the great batting conditions spearheaded by Tim Scoular and Bailey Meidler. They really bowled tight and gave the Opposition no easy runs. Tim’s bowling like the Scoular of old this year and is really leading the attack head on as the true leader he is. Bailey is backing up Tim and bowling as a top opening partnership.

Luke Herzog and Ankit Grover bowled very good spells taking vital wickets in the middle order. Ankit was actually awarded man of the match today for taking three wickets for 19 runs off his seven overs. Luke Herzog confirmed today that he is a future A1 Grader, with a better attitude he will make it as a full timer one day. Luke was in fine spirits today and didn’t moan or complain about his feeble and average life as a Vegan once. Well done Luke!

Alex Robertson was awesome with the gloves today, like he is with his spending, was very tight with any extras.

Chasing a small total experienced James Makin and well endowed Phil Wurth came in and mutilated the Opposition taking 34 runs off the first four overs which helped put the game to sleep. From that moment Dan Costigan could breathe easy on his cigarettes.

Some of the younger players were claiming “we’ve won” only 6 or 7 overs in to our chase. It’s great confidence but they will learn that Cricket is a funny game and anything can happen.

The game never really in doubt though with Josh Mathias and James Makin closing out the day on 45 and 43 respectively with 10 overs to spare.

The game was won with our controlled bowling today, with the batters finishing off the day without any complications.

We didn’t even need to call on Superstar Ashane De Silva at any stage to do anything today. It was a brilliant days cricket today, some would say it was utter brilliancy.

It’s great to see all the A1 Grade players back at the club finding out how all the other grades have been travelling.

Looking forward to seeing everyone next week. The winning feeling is back with the A grade squad and looking to build on what we have done so far. It’s all looking bright for the future with a great mix of youth and experience.

A2 Grade 6/81 defeated SKLPS 80 – after a commanding performance last week, we decided to give the competition a chance and change half the side for our Round 2 game. The decision was made to drop Snumpty of the Captaincy after his 79th consecutive lost toss, and Jimmy stepped into the role of Specialist Blazer Wearer like a duck to water – winning the toss as his only contribution for the day.

We made first use of some reasonably handy bowling conditions early, with Tiz (4/6 off 7) changing things up and picking on someone his own size for once. Blowy bowled a long, hard and straight spell, balls flying all around the batsman’s face, and was unbelievably stiff not to end up with a pole.

At drinks SKLPS were 1/31, and a second session onslaught from Fernie (3/18), Jedwards (2/27) and Starry with 1/13 making sure the SKPLS change of innings debrief was more like a Royal Commission.

Unfortunately, things didn’t start well with the bat – the openers Volc failed to erupt, and Pon continued his luck from in the field, as we crept along to 4/17. This was a good tactical move however, bringing MOTM Tiz to the crease early. Combining with Fabs (clearly seeing them well after 4 dismissals behind the stumps in the first innings), they all but sealed the game us with a 41 run stand, leaving Starry & Blowy to finish and clean up a 4 wicket win.

Huge thanks to the boys from other sides who helped us out today – Pon, Hooch, Fabs, Starry & Jed.

B1 Blue (Rick) 8/117 lost to Berowra 3/123 – a disappointing loss for our B1 boys, despite better efforts from the previous week.

Winning the toss and going into bat, we lost early wickets to be 3/15 after five overs before skipper Rick Turner (30 with four 4s) and Julian Raffel (16 with two 4s) came together to soak up some overs and take some pressure off, pushing the ball around to put on 49 for the fourth wicket.

We suffered another collapse until Tim Leyshon (21no with three 4s) and Peter Flook (28 with four 4s) came together with some lusty hitting from Flooky in the final overs to put on 44 for the eighth wicket, eventually taking us to 117 at the end of our 35, a defendable total. Skipper Rick was solid with the bat leading from the front, and Flooky was spectacular for a “tail-ender” sweeping fast bowlers and hammering the legside.

Going into bowl, we shared the ball around trying to do something different and to take wickets, with eight bowlers being used and all doing quite well. Tim Leyshon (1/24) and Allan Raffel (2/14) took wickets and each bowled well, but all bowlers did well – Peter Flook got three votes for his all-round efforts, Ryan Loveridge showed some grit and pace, Rick Turner was on target, Prat Datar bowled beautifully, Chris Williamson floated it nicely, and Oliver Maybury showed some exciting promise with his left arm Chinamen’s.

We actually bowled and fielded very well, but unfortunately didn’t have enough runs to defend.

A good effort despite the loss. Special mention to Ryan Loveridge and Prat Datar who filled in from B2 and were fantastic. We batted well last week and bowled well this week, if we can put it together this team will really dominate and knowing this we’re excited for the next challenge!

B1 Red (Gunny) 3/94 defeated Normanhurst-Warrawee 92 – after a first up win last week, the boys were looking forward to backing up a great performance with another victory. With only 10 men at Dural Park, we lost the toss and were sent in to bowl.

Throughout the day our bowlers were disciplined, frustrating the Normo batsmen with tight lines backed up by good fielding. This brought wickets at regular intervals. Best of the bowling was Kyle Townsend who picked up 3/21, including a hat-trick! This is Kyle’s first hat-trick and the 48th in our Clubs history.

The other wicket takers were Aaron (1/4), Gian (3/11), Yash (1/13) and Ben (2/23).

Following an impressive bowling performance, we made little work of Normo’s modest total. After 79 not out last week, Matt Watts’ good form continued, batting through the innings and finishing on 42 not out. Matt was well supported by Will (17) and Kyle (18 not out).

With 2 wins in a row and some key players returning next week, we will look to build on this momentum in the coming rounds. Special thanks goes to Gian, Yash and Will for filling in and to Alex Chidgey for being the sub fielder.

B2 Vs Bye– no play this weekend.

C1 5/171 lost to Mt Colah 176 – a beautiful day greeted the clash between West Penno & Mount Colah, losing the toss Mount Colah batted, belting us on a small Campbell Park 0-97 off 8, our openers copped a bit of stick, Aseem Goswami (0-44 off 3), & Waris Trehan (2-26), bowled in tandem without success.

Spin was introduced, proving a masterstroke, Arjun Kumar (2-38 off 7), Asees Rajput (4-25 off 7) were instrumental in reducing the run rate, putting pressure back onto Mount Colah, ably supported by Nandu Romesh (2-20 off 2).

Mount Colah building to all out for 176, a great recovery from our bowlers. Special mention to Andrew Morris for coming down to field, and impart some of his wise words for this young team, we appreciated it.

Batting began with Waris Trehan (5) losing his wicket early, Richard Hughes (44) & Arjun Kumar (37) played with great touch & control (79 run partnership) in getting to drinks 1-84, however after drinks both got out quickly, Nandu Romesh batted quickly to (8) increase the run rate, Aseem Goswami (23no) & Asees Rajput (37) brought the game back into our favour, needing 10 off 3 balls we succumbed to lose by 5 runs.

In a game played in great spirits by both teams, some very entertaining cricket throughout.

C2 Blue (Fieds) defeated on forfeit Castle Hill – a shame but with the long weekend this sometime happens but we will take the 6 points anyway.

C2 Red (Indranil) 1/94 defeated Normanhurst-Warrawee 91 – with no wins under the belt this season there was a need to change something and we picked up the new scorebook moving on from the old one.

A good toss to win, keeping in mind that with just 7 on the ground at start of play and Bat #2,3,4 still not seen took a safe bet to invite Normo to bat first up.

Before the first ball was bowled we did have 10 on the field and good opening spell by Amitava (2/15) and Nikki O’Meara (1/28) to push Normo 3/45 in first 10 overs. Shanks (1/21) was unlucky to have 3 catches dropped in his spell but on the other hand good outfield catching by Graham and Jude Boyle and also a direct throw run-out from Jude, helped to chip away the wickets.

Manu Verma, filling in from C1s, sparkled at the end finishing 3/7 and Jude finished 1/2. Normo ended their innings with 8 more overs to go and a below par score 91 in a fast Normanhurst Park outfield.

Out turn to bat and had to ensure we just bat steadily and Graham (33*) and Ryan Gunn (25) did not disappoint. The opening pair put on 43 runs partnership and after the first wicket, Manu Verma was given the opportunity to bat up and played a sensible innings remaining 32 not out.

We finished the game in the 25^th over and a comprehensive win to get the first win of the season.

C3 64 lost to ARL 3/65 – the highlight of our batting was Ross Anderson bringing up his 8000th run for the Club. An amazing milestone and a privilege to watch.

There were no further highlights!

With a very modest total to defend the guys put their all in to the bowling and fielding effort with Rowan again showing real pace (1/11) and Will Harvey bowling terrifically to spin out a couple of batsmen (2/30).

More application from all the batsmen next week is needed so we can show the ability this team undoubtedly has.

Many thanks to Matt Schwartzel who filled in at the last minute, top scored and collected two great stumpings and a caught behind!

D1 9/125 lost to Thornleigh 8/126 – the game was a low scoring event that could’ve been won or lost in the last over. Alex and Ian held a long opening partnership, ultimately setting up the innings, Steve top scored with 22, whilst Alex and Cameron scored a handy 21 and 20 to give us a target to bowl to.

The opening bowlers kept a tight line and ensured few runs were leaked, the first wicket arrived late and the match seemed to be lost. However some incredible bowling by Cameron ensured the game was in the balance after he grabbed 6 wickets and a hat-trick – just the 49^th in our history.

The final two overs required 5 runs from Thornleigh with their last batsman at the crease. After a quick single and an edged four Thornleigh managed to take the win.

D2 5/176 defeated St Ives 6/123 – this match was on Bannockburn Oval with the east side very fast and the west quite slow. The ground was quite bumpy as well making fielding quite difficult.

We won the toss and decided to bat.

Luke Christensen and Thiru Pukazthenthi opened the batting and got off to a good start hitting 23 runs in the first 5 overs. We lost our first wicket in the 6^th over with Thiru hitting 16 runs. Captain Mike hit 12 runs before being bowled by a good seamer. We had drinks at the end of 17 overs with a score of 2/47.

The batters who followed upped the run rate with Luke Christensen finally being bowled in the 29th over for a very good score of 67. He and Praneel Singh sustained a partnership through the middle order both hitting boundaries. Luke hit 8 and Praneel 4 with Praneel not out at the end having hit 49 runs.

The opposition only conceded 4 byes and no wides or no no-balls. We ended up with a total of 176.

Our bowling was vastly improved this round with only 12 sundries which included 7 byes. The best figures were Lakshya Rao who achieved 2/11 from 5 overs, Parin Pillamarri who got 1/11 off 4 overs which included 2 maidens, Nirav Desai 1/12 off 4 overs, Praneel Singh 0/14 off 7 overs and Waman Tamhankar 1/28 off 7 overs.

So in effect we dried up the Opposition runs. Thiru took 2 very good catches in the gully as did Parin taking one. Vishaal Nathan took one wicket in their last over by running out the 6th batsman off his own bowling. Kamal Pasha and Simon Friend worked diligently in fielding under difficult conditions on the boundary.

So a very good day out for our first win of the season. Both the bowling and batting were much improved and this was the difference between the teams.