A2 Grade

WPHC Red (Simon) 80 lost to Berowra 195 & 3/88 – brilliant throw down conditions met us at Storey Park, where slow full tosses were met with powerful cover drives. Gandis ‘Vegan’ Vegan drew the short straw, and had to throw to Maxim ‘GOAT’ Bennett. Maxim nailed a series of straight drives which forced Vegan into duck and weave mode. The highlight here was Vegan jumping a ball which lifted into his shin.

Snumpty was a bastard, and threw yorkers at J-Mac, whilst Costo ‘Chode Thumb’ Costigan decided to whip Kit ‘Not Tis’ Tens repeatedly through mid wicket, in a dazzling pre-game display. A Pon cover drive which hit Snumpty on the leg was a sign of things to come, as Tens did his best Troy Dann impression, by going bush to collect the throw down balls lost in battle. Troy Dann wears acubras like Barnaby Joyce. We were joyfully unaware that this was the best (only) cricket we would play all day.

With the bat, sundries really knuckled down under heavy pressure from Berowra. They picked their fielders well – which happened to be Berowra’s keeper. He caught as many balls as the audience at a poorly delivered circumcision. The rest of us played as poorly as the Berowra keeper. He was genuinely our best player. Also the disappointment on Stanton ‘Pon’ Tam’s mother’s face upon leaving his shoes at home was likened to him scoring 96% on his last maths test. She’s also somewhat single for all readers of Yellow Fever Monthly.

In other news, season 18/19 starts on 22nd of September and if you need a doctor A2 Electric Salmon will be putting on a clinic at Greenway Park. Simon ‘North are poo’ Smyth is taking 4/31 and Volc ‘Volc’ Volc will be bringing up his prior levels of fitness with a vigour consistent with his ‘self care’ on a lonely Friday night.  #threebackontheleg

Simon ‘Sn’ Smyth and Michael ‘Obbo Review’ Robertson would like to thank our readership for such strong support all year. We’ve seen 88.7% of WPHCCC players read the review throughout the year and 46.2% of those were regular readers. Of players polled, 75% said it was ‘readable’ and 16% described it as an ‘experience’ and most importantly 52% said they would recommend it to their mum – of which 12% are hot, so 6.2% of those people recommended to a milf.

B2 Red (Rob) 6/124 drew with SKLPS 9 dec./204 – arriving at Greenway Park with the Opposition 9/204, we were unsure if we would be back in the field for a short time or sent in to bat.

SKLPS declared and sent us in to bat, giving us 75 overs to chase down their total. Unfortunately we lost 2 quick wickets to find ourselves 2/12 after 6 overs. Zac Morris (24) played an important knock, showing a level of maturity well above his years to consolidate after the early wickets. Zac was joined by Phil Hayes (20) who continued to play his shots around the ground. Brent Larkham worked the ball around and punished the bad balls to put on a well compiled 32.

The target slowly became out of reach and the boys knuckled down to bat through the overs as a draw would see us move through to the Final.

Ryan Gunn (13*) and Aaron Hawkins (13*) came together in the 49th over. The pair played with unbelievable patience and great restraint to remain not out after the 77th over! A fantastic display of determination.

While things didn’t go to plan last week with our fielding, the teams true character was on display this week. Once again this tough test will only strengthen us as we move into the Final.

Thank you to all that came down to support the team over the last couple of weeks. It really is appreciated and we look forward to seeing a few of you next Saturday/Sunday!

C3 Grade

WPHC 78 & 5/147 lost to St Ives 113 & 4/78 – we had a simple script start of day and it was spread out in 3 series. 1^st one was to get the last 2 wickets of St Ives. We did get them out at the end of 7 overs without much damage to the overall lead. Script 1 out of 3 worked fine. Amitava finishing with another 5 wicket haul giving away just 32 runs in 15 overs.

With 35 runs behind we had to shuffle the batting order to get some our big hitters in early. We lost Sreeni early in the innings but Peza and Ramil had a good 50+ runs partnership for the 2^nd wicket.

Rommel came in at No 4 and did not disappoint scoring freely from the first ball. There were good partnerships in the middle with all batters getting some useful runs. By tea we had played 28 overs scoring 147 losing 5 wickets and we declared without losing the 3 overs for change over. Rommel was the star remaining not out on 48* with useful contributions from Peza 38, Ramil 15, Indranil 14 and Anthony 18. A lead of 112 runs with 37 overs min to bowl out St Ives, script 2 out of 3 went our way.

Now for the last script to work we knew it would be a big challenge as the batsmen would just drop anchor and no surprises when we saw after 10 overs, St Ives just had 13 runs without losing wickets. Bowlers were changed continuously and we got the first breakthrough on Shanks bowling. After that St Ives were only playing out the overs and after 23 they were 1/64.

With confidence building they changed gears and we were able to get some quick wickets. With 10 overs remaining we still had 6 wickets to get and finally called off the game with just 3 overs remaining. Bowlers amongst the wickets were Shanks 2/16, Anthony 1/11 and Sreeni 1/4.

A great season coming to the end and thanks to all the supporters who had cheered us through the game. The team fought till the end and cannot be more proud for such a great comeback from week 1. One common feel within the team was this was a missed chance in the semis but next season we should come back strongly.

D2 Grade

WPHC 250 defeated Kissing Point 162 – last week we lost the toss and were sent into bat by KP. They expected to bowl us out cheaply but this didn’t go to plan. At the end of play we had lost 4 wickets for 182 runs after 78 overs.

On Day 2 we managed to bat a further 26 overs hitting 250 runs in total. Brent Van Wck hit 73 runs in his knock including 8 fours and 5 sixes. The umpires decided that KP had to bat 47 overs to finish the days play.

After 10 overs we had taken the Opener’s wicket via a stumping by Luke Christensen off Wanamaker Tamhankar’ bowling after the first Opener advanced down the wicket but missed hitting the ball.

Captain Mike caught a very fast hard ball at long off which removed the second Opener. So KP was 2 for 24 after 10 overs. By 15 overs KP had lost 2 more wickets to be 4 for 38 runs. The middle order for KP then tried to hit every ball out of the park so to speak and added 46 runs before losing their fifth wicket for 84 runs in their 27th over.

Captain Mike managed to snare a wicket off their best batter who had hit 40 runs. Young Parin Pillamarri then came back to bowl along with Ben Kinchington and between them took another 3wickets. The pressure on KP kept shooting up and up and towards the end they needed to hit 11 runs an over just to stay even. Nerav Desai then took 2 quick wickets for 9 runs in his two overs which caused KP to be all out for 162. Parin’s figures were 3 for 41 off 10 overs. Ben Kinchington got 2 wickets for 28 off 8 overs.

So a fine result with only 7 sundries by our bowlers in that 39 overs. Great fielding by Agni Sen who was everywhere and saved a lot of runs. Luke Christensen was particularly good with the gloves today including a superb wicket keeping catch off a nick.

So we should now advance to the final against Hornsby next weekend. Well done now having won the last six matches.

John Hayne Cup

Game 1

WPHC ‘C&D’ 4/180 defeated WPHC ‘A&B’ 8/142

The bowling highlight came from a fantastic spell by young Avi Lath who took 3/4 in 1.2 overs. Will, Nick, Dave, Scott and Buzz taking one a piece.

Our best batsman was P. Enaltyruns who knocked up 59 before we took the field to give us a pretty hefty advantage! Actual top scoring batsmen were Peter Lees (23*), Nick Sparks (20*) and Tanay (20*).

Game 2:

WPHC ‘C&D’ 8/145 lost to Castle Hill ‘A&C’ 9/146

Batting highlights came from Will (26*), Cody (23*) and Murray (21*). With our handicap we managed a pretty challenging 145.

This always looked like being a closely run thing and Castle Hill came out of the gates strongly, but we kept pegging them back and the advantage swung between the teams a number of times. With one wicket remaining and 10 needed to win off the last over, they scraped home off the last ball in a nail biter!

Best of the bowlers were Tarun (2/7) & Tanay (2/22). Scott, Will, and Nick each picked up a wicket.

However the outstanding bowling effort of this match was when C2 Legend Peter Lees picked up his first wicket for well over 10 years to collect 1/9!

Another fun day and a great way to end our season. Congratulations to B2 and D2 for making the Final and best of luck next weekend lads!