A1 Grade

WPHC 0/79 Vs Sydney Lions 195 – an emotional day with the announcement of the retirement of club Champion and 4 time Rofie winner Matt Jobson today.

Matt Jobson has given everything he possibly could this year but unfortunately injury has set back this great warrior. Matt opened the bowling and was being attacked from pillar to post by the great Sydney Lions batsman Nuwan who only knows one way… 6, 4 or no way at all. After bowling a great line and being bashed, Matt Jobson, the Champion had one last trick up his sleeve, bowling an inswinging Yorker that bowled Nuwan middle stump in true fabulous Matt Jobbo style. What a way to finish it… being the best, bowling the best ! in true Tim Scoular words, GOD BLESS YOU MATT JOBSON !!

Who knows though, MJ may decide to play as a dedicated batsmen, we all know he is good enough!!

As a new dawn awaits and older gladiators exit the Coliseum then opens doors for the new potential champions, enter Bailey Meidler, announced as A grade player number 318 by club Legend James Makin, came in and bowled a great spell with immaculate pace and control.

Tim Scoular bowled at his brilliant best without much luck today but like always a top leader of the team, sometimes being the best doesn’t mean you take all the wickets. It got shared around at the other end. Andy Fernaby Meikle bowled magnificently today and had the ball on a string. A beautiful catch in the outfield by the enigmatic Alex Robertson. Class has no boundaries with this character.

James Makin tossed the coin and gave Phil Wurth a go with the ball who managed to take a wicket at a good time in the match, great captaincy which resulted in good reward with a cheap wicket.

Dan Heidegger never stopped chirping and kept the team up when things were looking low. Such a great quality and fantastic human.

Batting with 19 overs left in the day, Phil Wurth and James Makin decided to bat out the day and make sure no wickets were lost. There were a few close calls but overall the mission was accomplished with no wickets down and WPH looking like being in a good position. Phil Wurth 50* and James Makin on 26*.

A2 Grade

WPHC Red (Simon) 2/102 defeated Glenorie 89 – all is well with the world again. Snump lost the toss. His team-sheet handwriting was extremely neat though, and he was awarded with his pen licence. Congratulations.

In indoor cricket, you lose runs for getting out. Glenorie batsmen tried to lose runs by staying out there. The worm was dead. Queen and Bowie teamed up to sing ‘Under Pressure’ in the 80’s. With Tis ‘Haircut’ Mistry, Gandis ‘Mum’s Socks’ Gandis and Mobbo ‘Donald’ Trunk, the Glenorie batsmen were.

We then turned to turn. Holly ‘Chopper’ Wood went through the Glenorie middle order like Barnaby Joyce went through his staff, claiming his first ever bank, taking 5/13. Costo ‘2nd Best Spinner’ Cardigan took 3/25, in the best support act since Milli Vanilli’s backing vocalists.

Glenorie were all out for 89. We are 2/102. Steven Undries was sensational, with some fine glances and wide leaves. Pon ‘Pon’ Pon and Costo also contributed nicely. Unlike Mr Joyce, we are in a good position to move forward without judgement.

WPHC Blue (Rick) 116 Vs Castle Hill 0/48

For reference:

• Rowan Keating = 23
• Chris Williamson = Willy
• Alex Turner = Hooch
• Jules Raffel = Sean Anthony
• Rick Turner = The Flair
• Nick Starr = Ivan
• Jackson Preedy = The Preedofile
• Taki Manolelis = Taki Manolelis
• Justin Edwards = Clive
• Peter Flook = Slender

What was good about today? Nothing. Flair won the toss and decided to bat. That was OK. It was sunny. That was OK. Outside of that it was a boring, boring, boring day of cricket. The conditions at Fred Caterson didn’t favour batting and at one stage after 30 overs we were 3/38. OMG!! We managed to bat for 68.4 overs for 116. Best of our batting Edwards 26*, Murdeshwar 25, Hando 14 and Keating 12.

We had 14 overs at Castle Hill at the end of the day and didn’t bowl well. They are 0/48. Not the best day of cricket for us this season. We look forward to next week.

B1 Grade

WPHC 1/3 Vs Lions 294 – on a fast looking ground at Annangrove, we lost the toss and was sent into bowl, that was our plan all along anyway! In a game where we needed a result to have any shot for the finals, we were looking at taking 10 wickets and forcing a result next week, and after the first session it was looking good. After some fast scoring, we reigned them back in and had the Lions at 3/61 at the 20 over mark. The Lions then had a fight back with wickets coming rarely, and a few drop catches not helping, the score started to slip away from us.

The 200 mark was hit in the 51^st over, and with only 5 wickets down, we were expecting to be chasing a big total now. However our bowlers did a fantastic job, as well as holding onto some good catches, we got the Lions all out in the 70^th over for 294.

Best of the bowling were Matt Watts 4/26 off 8.2, Nathaniel Chidgey 2/51 off 15, and Semonn Oleksyn 1/37 off 10.

We were sent into bat for 15mins, and unfortunately lost a wicket, we are sitting 1/3 going into next week with a big run chase ahead of us!

B2 Grade

WPHC Red (Rob) 5/177 dec defeated Sydney Lions 105 & 3/7 – we won the toss and sent the Opposition in to bat. The aim for this match was to tighten our efforts in the field leading in to the Semis.

The boys built early pressure and got the first wicket in the 4th over with a great run out by Matt Digby. Diggers followed that up by taking the 2nd wicket with the ball in hand. A great in-swinging yorker that knocked over middle stump. Diggers continued to bowl well taking 4/16 from his 12 overs, including a sharp catch to Andrew Morris behind the stumps diving low and to his right. All the bowlers chipped in to dismiss the Opposition for 105.

We went into bat with 41 overs remaining in the day. The Morris twins got us off to a great start. Zac Morris (20) and Andrew Morris (61) put on 47 runs before Zac was dismissed. Andrew and Phil Hayes (40) kept the moment going, putting on a 61 run partnership.

Having passed the required total Ray Khamis was given free rein to wield the bat. Ray went about destroying the bowlers scoring 40 runs from 18 balls, including 22 from one over. This late flurry put us 77 runs ahead, and gave us an opportunity to declare and have a few overs at the opposition.

We had 6 overs to bowl before the end of the days play. Aaron Hawkins (2/0) and Dean Carlin (1/3) bowled great short spells to have the opposition at 3/7 at the end of the day.

A great days work in an important match.

WPHC Blue (Tim) defeated on forfeit Lankan Islanders – what a shame. The boys were primed to finish the season with a win so we finish the season with the disappointment of not getting on the field. The positive is that with Robbie Knapper’s Red Team on track to an outright win the boys could well pickup 10 points and leapfrog 2 Teams in the final points table.

C1 Grade

WPHC 219 Vs Sydney Lions – Tarun continued his fine end of season form with the tosses and sent us in to bat.

Things didn’t get off to a great start with both of our openers failing to get off the mark. Soon we were in trouble at 4/38, with a positive partnership between Richard Hughes (13) and Nandu Ramesh getting us back into the game.

Cameron Tunks (10) was then brought to the crease and played an energetic innings, and was unlucky to fall to a great catch in the outfield. Nandu continued to play his shots and surged past 50, and when joined at the crease by Ryan ‘Birdcage’ Loveridge (29*) managed to get his first ever century; a complete innings with runs all over the park finishing on 130. This was our 474^th ton and 15^th this season.

Ryan demonstrated great patience with the bat, with a 93 run partnership getting us to a respectable total of 219.

With 14 overs to bowl the Lions openers attacked from the start, with Ryan managing to take an important wicket thanks to a great catch from T.Lath. The game is up for the takeing next week with disciplined bowling and fielding efforts.

C2 Grade

WPHC 241 Vs Beecroft – winning the toss we batted first at Greenup Park with Ross, Will and Cody getting us off to a solid start to take us to 3/49 off 21 overs of good opposition bowling.

Peter Lees (just off the plane from Hawaii) and Tanay built a quality partnership against continued good spells to add 87 before Peter (maintaining his pre-holiday form) was out having made a punishing 54 (7×4, 3×6).

Calamity then ensued when we lost two wickets in two overs to run outs. Tanay for a patient and well made 30, then Murray Chapman for a diamond! As Buzz walked out to join Scott Chapman, he suggested it’d be a good idea for Scotty to stick around in the middle for a while and score a few before having to go off and face his Dad! He did just that and made a hard hitting 28.

The tail kept wagging with everyone chipping in and an excellent innings from Dave Behlevanas who held the lower order together and entertained the crowd with some terrific shots in his 37*

After being 6/140 at one stage, to add an extra 101 for the last 4 wickets was a great effort from the boys to put us in a good position to keep our winning run rolling on and to beat the top side would be a fantastic way to end the regular season.

C3 Grade

WPHC 7/254 Vs Glenorie – this is a 3 Vs #4 game and it was up to Glenorie to win the game, for us it just needed patience to dig in deep. The luck on toss had dried up since start of season and today was no exception. It took the Opposition Captain 5 mins to confer with his team to make a decision and finally made the call to put us to bat. That was probably the best thing they spend on the whole day as things turned out differently to their plans.

We tried to replicate the batting order with the Finals in mind, keeping the top 7 same order as last round. The start was not great with Cliff out to a good in swing in the 3^rd over. It was then a consolidation between Indranil and Ramil, to see off till the first drinks break with 59 runs on board. Indranil then changed gears after drinks and made a quick fire 62 falling finally to a rush of blood shot.

In the middle overs the batsmen consolidated further and build some good partnerships. Manu “Wall” Verma was the star again batting through the day staying not out on 64*. He was well supported by Ramil 24, Anthony 37, Rommel 17, Sreeni 12 and Vishaal 7*. We finished the day at 254 with loss of 7 wickets and Glenorie bowling never looked threatening.

The team is comfortably placed after Week 1 and as there is no hurry to declare next week it needs to be seen if Manu can score his maiden century for the season. Good team work all around.

D1 Grade

WPHC 0/0 Vs St Ives 175 – winning the toss and electing to bowl in a must win game, the innings started off well with consistent wickets falling before St Ives consolidated, leaving them at 3/105 at tea. A flurry of wickets from Roshan (3/40), Amith (3/50), Connor (2/22) and Avi (1/18) had St Ives 9/130 and us well in front.

Several dropped catches and missed opportunities meant St Ives reached 175 before the last wicket fell.

Ian and Aden then comfortably saw out the remaining 2 overs of the day leaving us at 0/0 before we continue next week.

D2 Grade

WPHC 6/262 Vs Thornleigh – we lost the toss against Thornleigh who sent us in to bat. We were hoping to bowl and boy oh boy were we glad to have that choice taken from us.

In all the years of coming to Arcadia Oval we have never seen it as brown, as baked and the grass cut close to the surface. Ben Kinchington and Captain Mike opened the batting as per usual. We lost our first wicket in the 19^th over when Ben hit a low hard ball to short mid off which was caught by the fielder in a reflex action.

So our first wicket was lost for 28 runs. Ian Williams came in at the changeover but was stumped going down the pitch in the 30th over to hit a slow ball but missed. We had accumulated 57 runs by that stage.

Captain Mike managed to hit 48 runs but miss-hit a ball which skied upwards and was caught in the 41^st over bringing our total to 96 runs for the loss of 3 wickets. John Rose and Brent Van Wck then shared a partnership of 109 runs with John hitting 38 and Brent eventually getting 81 runs. Brent’s inning included 7 sixes and 4 fours. One of those sixes actually hit the security screen of the door of the Arcadia Fire Brigade some 10 metres outside the ground.

Both lost their wickets but by this stage we were 5 wickets down for 237 runs in the 69^th over. Then Wanam Tamhankar and Luke Christensen combined for a final partnership of 28 runs to get our total to 262 runs in the 78th over when the days play ended. Thornleigh looked worn out by this stage.

A great effort by everyone. We still have 4 batsmen to play. We will decide when to declare our innings next week. Thornleigh probably thought that by sending us in to bat that they would bowl us out cheaply securing them a better position. Their main strike bowler took 4 wickets in 2 overs on the last occasion we met but this time he only got 1 wicket after bowling 12 overs.

Our stubbornness at the crease has paid a very good dividend. Hopefully, we will bowl them out next week and secure a win placing us in the position we want in the semi-final.