Bradmanesque

One of our ‘quiet’ high achievers is Sean Clarence (A1).

Sean has played a lot of Premier 1^st Grade cricket in his younger years and has dominated A1 since his debut in 2021/22. He has played 41 games for West Penno and has scored 1,233 runs at a career average of 51.4. This is second only to the great Laurie Tuckerman (1951/52) who had a career average of 59.3. In 2022/23 Sean won the Association’s ‘Bruce Kimberly Trophy’ for the best player in the A1 Competition.

This season Sean is averaging an amazing 107.0 runs per innings. While the season is only approaching the half-way mark, Club & Association records start to trigger once a player completes 4 innings.

At Club level, in our 93 year history, only a handful of players have finished the season with, or near, a 100 season batting average. How about this as a list of elite players who have averaged amazing numbers after a minimum of 4 innings:

• Peter Smith (A2 to C1) – averaged 107.3 in B2 (1982/83)
• Sean Clarence (A1) – 107.0 in A1 (current season)
• Matt Barr (C1 & A1) –101.3 in A1 (1999/2000)
• Barry McDonald (A1 to B2) – 99.5 in A2 Grade (1978/79)
• Matt Davidson (D1 to A2) – 92.5 in Sunday Premier League (2015/16
• Nick Bennett (Colts, A2 & A1) – 90.6 in Colts (2007/08)
• Russel Ingram (C2, C3 & Colts) – 87.4 in C2 (2009/10). Note: Russel also had scores of 223 and 211 this season!
• Laurie Tuckerman (A1) –85.1 in A1 (1951/52)

Theme music – Paul Kelly’s great song on – Don Bradman

Photo: Sean Clarence (front row and far left), with our 1^st Grade T20 Premiership winning side @ Greenway Park 15 October 2022.

Traffic jam

After 7 Rounds there are a couple of Grades where our Teams are neck and neck in dominant positions. In Seniors C4 Grade, we have 3 x Teams in an 11 Team competition.

Our Teams are neck and neck going into the half-way mark of the season – Blue (Rob) is coming equal first (32 points); White (Agniva) is also equal first on 32 points & Red (Ross) is coming 5^th on 29 points – just 3 points  off 1^st place. The Reds also lost their Round 6 game in a thriller in the last over of a 1-day game last round.

The Juniors has an even more remarkable table. In the U13’s we have 7 x Teams in a 16 Team competition with 5 of our Teams in the top 6 positions and with only 5 points separating our 6^th placed Blue side from the 4^th placed Green side. All this after 10 Rounds!

Photo: Ross Smith (Red) & Agniva Chakraborty (White) in C4 Grade – Sheep Station Trophy @ Campbell Park – 26 October 2024

A true Aussie

How good is Sreeni Pillamarri – a long-term player who is a Councillor at Parramatta Council and before then a Councillor on Hornsby Shire Council. Sreeni’s son, Parin plays D1 with us.

Sreeni is a passionate cricketer, an even more passionate ‘Aussie’ and above all, a super passionate cricket lover. As background, back in 2020, when we were in the the grip of a bad drought, Sreeni walked from Parramatta to Canberra to raise funds for the drought stricken farmers and then raised more funds for bushfire victims

On Saturday he was on the Sunrise TV Breakfast program with other passionate Indian cricket supporters with their enthusiastic commentary about Day 1 of the 1^st Test against India. Not only was Sreeni cheering for ‘Aussie, Aussie, Aussie’ but he was proudly wearing his West Penno playing shirt.

Well done Sreeni!

Photo: Sreeni on the Sunrise TV program on Sarturday 23 November 2024.

Closing in

We are privileged to have 2 great people playing for our Club going head to head in one of those behind the scenes ‘battle’ for bragging rights.

In D1 Grade, the highest wicket taker in our history is Roger Friend (current D2 skipper) with 139 wickets after 81 matches. Just behind this record is Dave Larkham who has played 61 games and has taken 133 wickets – just 7 wickets away from setting a new record of 140 wickets.

Photo: Dave Larkham after taking his 100^th wicket in D Grade – Foxglove Oval – 11 February 2023.

C4 Grade by the numbers

This week we focus on C4 Grade.

The C4 Competition was started in the 2014/15 season. Also, no competition was run between 2016/17 & 2019/20 season.

Some interesting facts for C4 Grade, by the numbers:

• 2 x times Grand Finalists in the 9 years this Comp has been running:
  • Our 1^st Premiership  win was in 2015/16 under Skipper Ron Knapman
  • Our 2^nd Premiership was won by Rob Hanich in 2020/21
  • We have won every Grand Final we have played in and is the only Grade where we have not lost a Premiership we have competed in
• Best bowling performance by an individual is by Peter Flook 7/30 Vs Castle Hill @ Campbell Park on 1/11/2014. Earlier this season Kaushal Gandhi took 6/7 that included a hat-trick – our 1^st ever in the Grade
• Highest:
  • individual score is 131* by Raynaldo Howard Vs Castle Hill RSL @ Caterson 4  on 13/1/2004
  • partnership – 186 for the 3^rd wicket by Tarun Lath & Divyan Shankar Vs Castle Hill RSL on 25/10/2024
  • we also hold an amazing 4 of the highest Association record partnerships:
    • 3^rd wicket – 186 runs
    • 4^th wicket – 115
    • 7^th wicket – 76
    • 10^th wicket – 48
• The most capped C4 players in our history is tied 4-ways: Sparsh Polepalle, Rayl Kumbam, Hiresh De Silva – all with 21 appearances
•  A Club record 5 x 6’s in succession in an over was scored Saturday 9 January 2016 (C4 Grade Vs Kissing Point @ George Christie) by Ray Khamis. The sequence was 6 (lost ball), 6, 6, 6, 6, bye. He scored 31 runs in the over – 2^nd only to the 34 scored by Matt Scoular in a Colts game @ Storey Park 27/1/2008
• Highest score by our side is an Association record 6/462 Cs castle Hill RSL @ Campbell Park on 25/11/2014
• Lowest score against us is 38 Vs St Ives @ Hassell Park on 30/10/2021

• 12,941 runs have been scored @ an average of 19.0 runs / wicket

• 12,658 runs have been scored against us @ 18.0 runs / wicket taken

Photo:

C4 Premiers 2015/16. Our players from left to right are: Back row – Kyle Townsend, Cameron Bish, Ryan Gunn, Matt Digby, Riley Behlevanas, Ian Paterson Front row – Aaron Hawkins, Dave Behlevanas, Rob Knapman (C), Stuart Fiedler, Steve Quanborough, Alex Chidgey, Pratah Sinnetamby and Ray Khamis.