Quiet Achiever

On Day 1 of last week’s D1 Sheep Station Trophy @ Northholm Grammar, Amith Ninan, one of our quiet achievers, bowled 4 overs and took an amazing 5/1. Our records focus on players who have taken 7 wickets or better but this performance would be up there with our best. While data is limited, what we do know is that the best recorded 5 wickets in an innings performance is by James Kealy (B1) in 2008/09 who took 5/0.

Well done Amith.

Photo: Amith Ninan after his 5 for 1 Vs our Blues in the Sheep Station Trophy last week.

James Makin GF record

Last Sunday, James Makin, our Seniors Director, played in the 1^st Grade T20 Grand Final. The boys won and this was James’ 21^st Seniors GF for a 12 wins / 9 loss record. No other player in our history has played in more GF’s or won more games. The next best record is by Andrew Fiedler who played in 16 GF’s for a 11 win / 5 loss record.

How did he go? The boys won by 14 runs and James scored 45 runs in 36 balls including a massive 6 at Normanhurst Oval.

Photo: James Makin about to hit a six Vs Normanhurst in the T20 Grand Final.

Quote of the week

Phil Wurth (A1 & Captain #24) is back playing after a short break away playing with his son in the Manly Comp. There isn’t a lot that Phil hasn’t achieved with West Penno.

One memorable experience was as our Presentation Night MC around 5 years ago, that lives on in the memory of those present. Anyway, the powers that be decided that while Phil is one of our great entertainers and ‘good blokes’ the risk of a repeat performances leaves him on the reserves bench for future Presentation nights. Phil, though thinks he still has a lot to offer as shown in this exchange with your friendly Club Secretary at the 1^st Grade T20 Grand Final last weekend:

“Mate, the bloody Menendez brothers are getting out of prison this week and they killed both their parents!!”

Photo: Phil Wurth (Captain #24 and right) with Cam McBrien (Captain #25) – Seniors Presentation Night – Greenway Park Community Centre – 06 May 2022.

“Lazarus with a triple by-pass”

John Howard, our 2^nd longest serving Prime Minister and most famous ex-player, once famously referred to himself a ‘Lazarus with a triple bypass’ when referring to his political comeback.

In this Round we had another version of Lazarus – this time on the playing field. Welcome back Allan Raffel (B1 Red). Raff is one of our elite players who, at the start of this season had scored 3,942 runs. He last played in 2021/22 in B1 / B2 until he had a heart attack. The big fella ended up in hospital and had a quadruple bypass.

Anyway, the B1 Red’s (Warren) put the call out for players this match and Raff put his hand up to play – not having picked up a bat for 4 years.

How did he go?

He scored 39 not out, 2^nd top scored and brought his Club aggregate to 3,981 and is now within touching distance of 4,000 runs and to be just the 19^th player in our history to reach this milestone.

Photo: Allan Raffel (seated) and Simon Smyth at the A2 Grand Final at Parklands Oval – 23 March 2019.

“Sorry about that”

Another of our quiet achievers is Dave Larkham (D1 Red). Dave is one of those medium pace bowlers who just keeps getting wickets, no fuss, no thrills – just metronome consistency.

Anyway, one of our obscure records is that the highest wicket taker in D1 is Roger Friend (D2 skipper) who holds the record number of dismissals with 139 wickets. Dave sits second on this list with 125 D1 wickets – just 14 off the record.

Anyway, this Saturday was wet, the ball was slippery and a catch was hit straight to one of our best fielders – Grant Gerber. To everyone’s surprise he put the catch down and kept Dave stuck – 14 short of the record.

Grant’s response once he knew about his part in this record being delayed – “..….sorry about that”

At least the boys could see the funny side of it all at the Club after the game.

Photo: Grant and Dave at the Sports Club.

C1 Grade by the numbers

So far we have given an insight into A1, A2 Grades & B1 Grades. This week we are doing C1 Grade.

Just like B1 Grade, the Association did not run a Competition during WW11 (1939-45). When we returned to competition in the 1946/47 season, after previously playing in Parramatta we entered 2 x sides – B1 and C1.

Some interesting facts for C1 Grade, by the numbers:

• 21 x times Grand Finalists – 2^nd only to B1 (24) as the most of any Grade
  • Our 1^st Premiership  win was in 1951/52
  • We have won 13 Premierships and been Runners-up 8 times
• Best bowling performance by an individual is 8/32 by Darryl Daniels in 2001/02 @ Hassell Park
• Highest:
  • individual score in C1 is 215 scored by John Chadwick in 1952/53 and this is the 3^rd highest score in our history
  • partnership – 278 runs for the 2^nd wicket by John Chadwick & K Matheson in 1952/53
• The most capped C1 player in our history is Kishore Rampersad (1992/93 to 2021/22) with 193 innings. He scored 2,284 runs and took 217 wickets
• Our all-time best C1 player is Eric Junkkari (1991/92 to current) who scored 2,983 and took 232 wickets
• 118,645 runs have been scored @ an average of 17.8 runs / wicket
• 116,628 runs have been scored against us @ 17.2 runs / wicket taken

Photo:

C1 2006-07 who just missed out in the Semi’s after a remarkable winning run:

Left to right: Nathan Fathers, Ross A, Patrick Nesbitt, John Nesbitt, Chris Collits, Andrew Watt, Bryce Morley, Tony Hadley, John Mitchell, Kishore Rampersad, Ashraf. David Consalvi away.