Did you know – statistical snapshot

This season we enter our 94^th as a Club. The following stats are an interesting insight into our previous 93 years:

Runs scored

• 1,043,939 runs scored at an average of 18.2 runs / wicket
• 68,236 innings played
• 157,442 runs scored in B1 Grade is the highest number of runs scored by any Team
• 225 runs – highest individual score by Kevin Smith in 1956/57 (B1 Grade)
• 4/516 – highest Team total scored by B2 in 2014/15 (George Christie)
• 4 runs – lowest Team total scored by our B1 side in the 1967/68 Grand Final @ Campbell Park

Runs scored against us

• 1,049,301 runs scored against us at an average of 18.2 runs / wicket taken
• 278,945 overs bowled
• 57,542 wickets taken
• 10/42 – best bowling performance in an innings by Ben McNamara in 2005/06 (D1 Grade)
• 725 runs – highest Team scored in the B2 Grand Final 1990/91
• 6 runs – lowest Team score by Kissing Point in 2020/21 (D2 Grade)

Photo: our B2 side (2014/15) who hold the highest Team score in our history (4/516). The Team is: Standing (left to right) – Pratamesh Datar, Ankit Grover, Daniel Quattorocchi, Justin Paterson (Capt and 87* runs), Kieran Barrett (26), Christian Neal, Matt Joliffe, Anurag Pattekar (50*), Nick Johnson (86) Sitting (left to right) – Anuj Dhorajiwala (115) and Kyle Faber (127)

Demographics – by postcode

This season we will end up registering over 750 players across all our Divisions – Blast, Boys, Girls & Seniors. Our players travel from all over Sydney to play for us and we have registrations from an amazing 51 different postcodes. Our top 3 postcodes are:

• Cherrybrook – 37%
• West Pennant Hills – 13%
• Dural – 8%

Our players travel from all over Sydney to play for us. Some of the exotic place names include: Claremont Meadows, Tallawong, Maroota, Colebee and Blue Bay.

Girls – on fire

We have been a powerhouse for Girls cricket for many years – Australia wide. We started a separate Girls comp way back in 1996 and have now registered 1,288 girls! This season we have already registered 76 girls across all Divisions – 11% of all registrations to date and this is increasing. So we have as many Girls playing cricket for us as some Clubs have total players.

Added to this, our Girls have won major NSW and Australian Awards over the last 3 years:

• 2022:
  • CNSW nominee for ‘Women & Girls Initiative of the Year’
  • Cricket Australia National winner ‘Women & Girls Initiative of the Year’
• 2023:
  • CNSW nominee for ‘Inclusion & Diversity Initiative of the Year’
  • Cricket Australia National winner ‘Women & Girls Initiative of the Year’

What better reason to have our first music link for the season – Cyndi Lauper – Girls Just Want to have Fun

Photo: International Women’s Day – Girls Stages 1 (ages 7 to 10 years), 2 (Ages 10 & 11 years) & 3 (12 to 16 years) – John Purchase Oval – 7 March 2023.

Space Cadet

For those new to our Club, a Space Cadet Award is one of those sought after awards that many aspire to but few reach these dizzing heights. It is awarded to those players who excel at doing something….dumb. Anyway, this season it took just one game – our first T20 way back on 14 September.

First up – our theme Music for this important Award – Elton John’s Rocket Man

Hat-tricks are rare. In our 94 years as a Club there have been only been 51 taken. In Round 1 of the T20’s (14 September) we had our 52^nd hat-trick when Matt Digby took a broken hat-trick (over 2 overs) in the T20 2^nd Grade game – a great achievement. How come we have only just found out about it? Matt mentioned it at the Club after the game and thought that T20 games didn’t count. They sure do Diggers so what should have been a great celebration of greatness we acknowledge the achievement through a Space Cadet honour.

Photo: Matt Digby on his first trip to Disneyland 10 – February 2023.

One man bands

We have already had a couple of amazing batting contributions to start the season. One of the stats we track is the highest individual contributions an individual batter has made to the total team score.

First up, the record contribution is 100% of the Team total when Wally Howard (brother of our former Prime Minister John Howard) scored 4 runs! He hit the only runs of the innings – an edged boundary. This game was the B1 Grand Final played at Campbell Park in 1967/68 and we were all, out for 4!

On Day 1 of the T20’s we had 2 big personal contributions:

• Daniel Anderson (1^st Grade T20) scored 89 not out of our total of 6/133 which is 66.9% of the total score. This is the 7^th highest individual contribution to an innings in our history. DA also has the 4^th highest personal contribution – 81 not out of a D2 total score of 81 (72.3%) as a 13 year old
• Harry Whitehouse (4^th Grade T20) and just 14 years & 4 months old, scored 78 not out of a Team total of 5/124 which is 62.9% of the Team total. This is the 12^th highest contribution to an innings total in our history.

For interest, the 2^nd player on the all-time list is current day player, Raynaldo Howard (C4 Red) who last season scored 131* of a C4 Red Team team total of 7/170 in a one-dayer – 77.1% of the Team total runs.

This music interlude will mean a lot to the boys of our great A1 Team (2011/12) who won the first of their 4 consecutive Grand Finals. Daniel played in this side and their theme song was Hunters & Collectors – Holy Grail

Photo: DA with the Premier First Grade Limited overs Premiership trophy 2023.

Quote of the week

Bill Peterkin, one of our all-time greats, has registered to play the occasional game as a fill-in player. He was going to play the opening T20 and got a great response from his wife about bringing along their son, Harry, to watch Dad play:

“It’s been a long, long while between games that’s for sure 🙂

I asked my wife if she’d bring Harry to come watch and basically told me I’m going to be really shit and probably not!!!!”

Photo: Bill Peterkin at the Juniors Mixed Presentation Day – Oakhill Drive Public School 20 March 2021

Records under threat

There are a number of long-standing Club records that could be broken this season:

Keep a lookout for progress on breaking these records throughout the season

Photo: Dave Larkham’s (D1 Red) 100^th wicket 29th October 2022

A new Life Member reflects

At the AGM, Steve Quanborough was approved as our 27^th Life Member. Have a read of Steve’s thoughts on what this great honour means to someone who has red, white, blue & green flowing through their veins:

“Today it was very fitting to be presented life membership of the West Pennant Hills Cherrybrook Cricket Club from none other than James Makin who brought me along a quarter of a century ago as a fill-in player after playing indoor with plenty of WPHCCC players previously.

 While I have retired after last season, I do look back with fondness of the Dream Team years (with too many names to mention here) as well as those years supporting other captains, junior players making transition to seniors and helping to shape a strong culture and a sense of belonging for all, mirrored off the very heart and soul of our club in Ross Anderson.

 Along the way I was able to assist for a couple of years as Senior Director, plenty as Deputy Seniors Director/Selector and in the latter chipping away with a few years on the Association Senior Competition Committee/Registrar which helped share the volunteering load on seniors.

 In the twilight cricketing years, playing cricket in particular with Ian Digby, David Larkham, Ross Anderson, unsung legend Roger Friend and Steve Burrows was a sheer delight, sharing my Saturdays at the game and a recap later at the sports club.

 Buzz, is it an honour to be presented this award with you.

 Thank you to the club for this momentous award and the friends through which I have made for life.

 As Jamaican says, “we play for the best club in the universe!”

For a musical interlude have a liten to this one – Memories by Maroon 5

Photo: James Makin & Steve Quanborough (right) – last game for Steve – Geenway Park – 10^th February 2024