The bat breaking-in

Phil Wurth (A1 and pictured with his bat) was telling the boys a story about the day when he asked his father in law to break his bat in. After leaving his new bat, the mallet and instructions about how to break a bat in, Phil let his father in law to do the job – bad decision. The bat looked like a moonscape with craters and broken edges where his instructions were taken literally – he broke the bat in by smashing it as hard as he could with the mallet. Phil still uses the bat and it seems go pretty well – it just looks ‘damaged’.

Tossers

Simon ‘Couldn’t toss a salad’ Smyth (A2 Red and pictured right) and Rick ‘Couldn’t call a cab’ Turner (A2 Blue) rank up there with the most unsuccessful tossers in our history – coin tossers that is. Anyway, the boys played each other on the weekend and the challenge was to see who would win the toss. Both Captains dressed the part with Simon resplendent in his Naval Captains cap and blazer and Rick in his dress jacket – not a bad effort considering it was 40 degrees in the shade.

Ladbrokes put out special odds and had them both at $1.05 favourites to both lose the toss for the Sheep Station Trophy.

Rick won the toss but lost the game so it looks like Ladbrokes got the odds pretty right.

Like father, like son

The Morris boys (Andrew, pictured left and Zac) had a day to remember. In the morning Zac, who plays in the U16 Blues scored his first ton – 100 retired, beating his previous best of 83 in the U15s. Not to be outdone, his dad, Andrew was playing for the B2 Reds and scored 101. So a father and son ton on the same day is very rare and one for the records. While our records on this type of achievement are not available, long term memory sees it as being a first. Anyway, it will now be recorded as the first known combined ton – great stuff boys.

Space Cadets

Eric Junkkari (B2)

What would a season be if Eric (pictured trying to assemble a sun shelter), didn’t figure in the Space Cadet entries and he didn’t disappoint. With our boys in the field with temperatures around 40 degrees the fielding started to struggle. Enter Eric. With 10 overs to go, Eric offered his encouragement “…we need to improve our fielding for the rest of the year”. The only problem was that there were only 10 overs to go in 2017.

Captain’s Certificate

Seniors Captains are required to complete a Captain’s Certificate, Umpires Exam to be able to Captain a side and this remains current for 5-years. This year we had 9 Captains / Vice Captains sit the Exam with all 9 getting the 75% pass rate.

Congratulations on passing the exam! Two Captains / Vice Captains though excelled – Simon ‘Snumpty’ Smyth (A2) with 100%, Allan Raffel 99% (A2) and Amith Ninan (C3) 99%.

To quote Simon “…looking at the results it seems drinking beer during exams is the way to go” with the follow-up “Just proves that beer kills dumb brain cells.”

Cameron McBrien

Cam (A1) is rapidly taking over from Lachlan Vile as the Space Cadet champion in A1. When the boys were taking off the covers after rain Cam commented how dry the wicket was. The big fella had to be reminded that the covers had been on since Thursday and they are actually meant to protect the wicket.

B2 Blue

This is a story of a Team (B2 Blue) who all figure in some capacity in the case of the ‘Heinz & Lows’. Ollie Maybury apparently comes to games with not one but 2 cans of Baked Beans for substance. The problems started when Ollie managed to pull-off the ring tabs off both cans. Now, how to open the cans?

Ollie tried first to open the cans by bashing it with a stump – no joy other than a battered can.

Next Rocket scientist was Jayson Smart (Smart of name and Smart by nature) who worked out that using a fork to leverage open the can would work – success. The boys now had 1 of 2 cans open.

The best came last. After seeing that a fork can work, Nikki O’Meara then devised a better method. He got a key and started belting it with a stump mallet. As expected he got a small puncture in the can and nothing else. Jayson decide not to use the fork again but just drank the tomato sauce from the small hole in the lid.

Zac Turner (B2 Blue)

Always well prepared, Zac rocked up to the game against the Lankan Islanders without his cricket pants. Unfortunately Zac was due to open the batting and we were batting first! After going home to get them he came in at number 3 and then spanked 113*.

Raghu Chary – the True Rocket Scientist

One of our players is at least a real Rocket Scientist – Raghu Chary from B2. Raghu and his wife are expecting their 2^nd baby very soon. With perfect planning the bay is expected between 17 December and 5^th January 2018. How about this for brilliant planning – the season goes into a break between 16^th December and 6^th January.

Richard Hughes (B2)

The boys were playing a nail biter in C1 with us needing 9 runs to win with 2 balls left chasing 152 for victory. Enter Richard Hughes who was also on 49* and batting well. For some reason the big fella decided to shoulder arms to the 2^nd last ball of the game giving us just 1 ball to get the 9 needed for victory.

Big Milestones achieved

The Seniors achieved have achieved some significant Milestones so far:

Individual

• Peter Lees (C2) became our 1^st player to score 2,000 runs in C2 Grade
• Michael Banner (A2) set a new record for the aggregate number of runs scored in A2 Grade. Michael now heads the list with 2,046 runs in this Grade and still going.
• Indranil Mukherjee (C3 Captain) opened the batting Vs Kenthurst @ Kenthurst Park and scored a record 24 runs off the 1^st over of our innings! The scoring sequence was 4, 4, 4, 6, 6.
• Rommel Pandey set a new Club C3 Grade record of 30 runs off an over.
• Brent Larkham (200*) scored only the 6^th double ton in our History and became the youngest player in our long history to score 200 at just 17 years and 10 months of age.

Team aggregates

• 875,000 Club runs in Senior grades
• A2 – 80,000 runs
• D1 – 80,000 runs
• In Round 6 we brought up the 230,000^th over in our Seniors History.

Record partnerships

• Brent Larkham (B2) and Eric Junkkari set a B2 Association 6^th wicket record 248*
• D2 Club 2^nd wicket record 214 – John Rose & Ben Kinchington
• A1 Club record 8^th wicket partnership 129 – Scott Henderson & Tim Scoular.

History repeating itself

Tony Mandile (B2) was umpiring in the C1 game when Brent Larkham (200*) and Eric Junkkari (57*) put on their new Association 6^th wicket record partnership of 248* runs.

What makes this amazing is that Tony was also umpiring the C1 game in 1991/92 when Rob Gailey scored 205 along with Eric Junkkari who was also playing in that game. In Tony’s case it was Umpiring both matches. In Eric’s case it was being a key partner in the record that was set last week.

To think that only 6 players have scored double tons in our 87 year History and that 2 players who were involved in that game 26 years ago were actively involved again is amazing.

Goat Track

Annangrove Oval is a reasonable oval but has been referred to as a Goat Track at times. This was taken to an extreme on the weekend. During the B2 game, a herd of 5 goats found their way to the ground and started to wander across the Oval. Enter skipper, Robbie Knapman who showed his true Leadership and herded the goats back to their enclosure – or so he thought. It turns out that Robbie put them in the wrong yard and the owner then released them again.

Goats being goats  they found their way back to the ground. They then found themselves back at the Oval and started foraging through kit bags until they eventually went off to annoy some other unsuspecting people.

Brothers in Arms

Bailey Miedler (right) made his A1 debut on 16 December and partnered his brother, Riley as opening bowlers. While not the first time brothers have played in A1 together it is rare. The boys join our other brothers who have also played A1:

• Donaldson’s (Ken and John) who were twins – 1960’ & 70s
• Fiedler’s (Greg and Andrew) – 1980s
• Will’s (Scott & Todd) – 1990s
• Ford’s (Tony & Greg) – 1990s
• Rae’s (Matt & Tim) – 1998/99
• Makin’s (James & Richard) – 2000s

Well done boys.

In a later Anecdote we will do a section on Fathers and sons who have played A1 Grade.