Home grown

One of our priorities over many years has been to develop our Juniors from Kanga and retain as many players as possible as the children progress from Kanga, though U8s to U16s and then to Seniors.

Our current A1 side has 12 of the 13 players in the squad who all played Juniors with us. Add to this the large number of Juniors in all Grades this is an amazing result and has built a pathway that is the envy of so many Clubs – anywhere.

Behind the scenes

Andy Meikle (A1 – pictured in the background) has a great job with CNSW. One of his “jobs” was to attend the Women’s Test at North Sydney Oval. Andy looked after Sahana Anand from our U13s for the Day and was the cameraman who recorded her exploits of our ‘Roving Reporter’. Have a look at the Photo Gallery to see some photos plus the link on Facebook ( here ) to see what a great job he did.

Space cadets

This week we have 2 outstanding nominations from the same B2 match:

Andrew Morris

The B2 boys were playing SKLPS at Cheltenham Oval with Andrew (pictured left with Zac) just 11 runs short of his 1,000 runs at the drinks break. Andrew reminded the boys that he needed just 11 runs for the milestone and then went out after the break to face the opposition slow bowler. First ball after the break Andrew went down the wicket with pure intent, perhaps even competitive ‘arrogance’ in facing such a mediocre bowler, but he missed it and was stumped by a long way.

This makes the first time a father and son combination have made it into our Space Cadet Awards with Zac starring last season when he asked if there are trees in Bangladesh.

Ray Khamis

Part 2 of the same shot in the same innings. This time we had Ray Khamis umpiring at the bowlers end when Andrew was stumped. The only problem was that when Andrew was out stumped it was Ray who gave him out rather than the square leg umpire. Unfortunately for the big fella we have lost count of the number of times he has won this prestigious Award but well deserved on this occasion.

Good advice

Zac Turner (B2 – pictured left with dad, Rick and brother, Alex) is one of those cricketers who is a thinking man’s cricketer. On the weekend, after top scoring in the first innings Zac gave some great advice to his opening batting partner – Tim Worthington: “If it is outside off stump leave it and hit it if the ball is on the stumps”.

The only problem is that in the first over Zac got a ball that pitched on middle and was going on to hit middle and he shouldered arms and was on his way. In the words of his Skipper at the other end, he asked the Umpire to at least wait a couple of seconds before giving him out.

Association top performers

A number of our players are leading the way in their various Competitions with the following players topping their Divisions:

Seniors

• B2:
  • Rob Knapman (16 wickets @ 10.32) -pictured (2nd left)
  • Brent Larkham (333 runs @ 166.5) – Brent (right in photo) is just 1 run behind the leader but this will likely change soon.

Juniors

• U16s
  • Jonathan Moran (231 runs @ 77.0)
  • Dylan Bish (7 wickets @ 9.00)
• U14 – Kieran Jackson (8 wickets @ 5.75)
• U12 – Kai Carney (12 wickets @ 5.33)

Time will tell, but maybe we might have seen the reincarnation of the ‘West Penno Gift’.