And you thought the grass at your ground was long….
If you think the outfield grass is longer than before Christmas – you are right. After Christmas, each of our local Councils, Hornsby, Ku-ring-gai and Baulkham Hills cut the outfield grass higher to prepare the grounds for the winter sports season. For the Teams playing in Finals this is particularly difficult as long grass is combined with dew on grounds to make it even more challenging to play on.
Sometimes Councils go a bit too far as shown in the accompanying photo of Arcadia Oval last week.
Photo: Arcadia Oval last Saturday – 8 February 2025
Young Guns – Batters
It is always risky calling out emerging stars with so many talented players missing out in what is always a subjective assessment…..but here goes anyway with our top 3 emerging stars, in alphabetical order:
Lachlan Edwards
Lachlan (A2 Red) is just 20 years old is close to reaching 2,000 runs and an average over 30 – pretty impressive when you consider that The Glade Oval is their ‘home’ ground. Included in this is a high score of 209* scored in C3 which is 5th highest score in our history, and the youngest double century scorer in our history. Lachlan also won our prestigious ‘Outstanding Prospect’ award in 2021/22.
Aden Hanich
Aden (C1) is just 22 years old and has already scored over 2,000 runs that includes 2 x tons (102*, 123) with a career average of just on 25 / innings plus is nudging 50 wicket keeping dismissals!
Raynaldo Howard
Raynaldo (C4 Red) is 19 years old and has passed 1,000 career runs and an average of 40.5. After his recent ton he is now one of just 24 players in our 93 year history to have scored 4 tons or more with the Club record of 7 tons under early threat.
Photos: 1) Aden Hanich after scoring 123 runs on 8 February 2025; 2). Raynaldo Howard after his 142 @ Campbell Park on 8 February 2025; 3). Lachlan Edwards with dad Warwick after his 209 on 26 November 2022.
Young Guns – Bowlers
Again, this subjective assessment is listed in alphabetical order:
Ben Burrows
Ben (A2 Red) has just turned 18 years and already taken over 70 career wickets at less than 16 runs / wicket including a best of 4/11 in B1 Grade. He has also already played in A1 Grade and was a key member of our Premiership winning 1st Grade T20 side.
Harry Hando
Harry is 21 years old and is the youngest of the equally amazing 4 x Hando brothers. In 2022/23 he won the prestigious ‘Outstanding Prospect’ Award. He is a permanent fixture in our 2nd placed A1 side. He has taken 50 career wickets @ 19 runs / wicket plus scored over 600 runs with a high score of 75 in A2. In A1 this season he has taken 9 wickets in a rain affected season at just 9.78 / wicket!
Jack Hutchinson
Jack, the current holder of the ‘Outstanding Prospect’ Award, is 19 years old and has already taken 96 wickets at an average of 16 / wicket with a best of 5/28 in A2 this season. He is also a more than handy bat average 17 / innings in the late middle order.
Photos: Ben Burrows (left) and Dylan Bish on their A1 debuts – 28 October 2023; 2) Harry Hando being awarded the Outstanding Prospect Award 5 May 2023; 3). Jack Hutchinson (right) with brother Todd and dad Craig with the B1 Premiership Trophy 19 March 2023
Sheep Station
The first recorded game between 2 x West Penno Seniors sides was the 1st Grade T20 Final between WPHC A1 Vs WPHC A2 Grade played at Bannockburn Oval on Sunday 16th October 2011.
The first Official Sheep Station Trophy though started on 16 December 2017 when our A2 Captains, Simon Smyth (Red) and Rick Turner (Blue), played our first Sheep Station Trophy game at Dural Park. Since then there have been 42 games played between our sides playing in the same Grade.
Over the years we have had some big games:
- The 2011/12 T20 Grand Final (James Makin & Allan Raffa) – 16 October 2011
- D1 Grade Semi Final (Ross Smith and Diggers) – 12 March 2022
- 3rd Grade T20 Grade Final (Indranil & Saurabh) – 27 October 2024
This week we have another big game in our Sheep Station history when our C4 Red (Ross) and Blue (Rob) play in the last Round of the season. The Blues are in 3rd sport (60 points) & the Reds (Ross S) in 6th spot (52 points). A win to the Reds and other results going their way would see them finish 4th. A win to the Blues could see them finish in 3rd spot.
The stakes are high so this is a big game – have a read of the Match Report for the latest.
Photo: Sheep Station Trophy C4 Blue (Rob) Vs Red (Ross S) @ Dural Park – 15 February 2025.
Anatomy of a record partnership
Last Round, C4 Grade boys put on a 10th wicket Club & Association partnership of 83 runs by Sayantan Sen (58) and Pritam Dhamija (66*). This smashed the previous record of 48 runs set by West Penno boys Robert Fynes-Clinton & Muditha Dissanayake back in 2020.
Sayantan bats at number 6 and Pritam at number 11. Pritam belted 11 x 4s and 1 x 6 (50 runs in boundaries). To top it off, Pritam then opened the bowling and took 4/27 from an amazing 15 overs to complete his match domination that got us an important victory.
Photo: Match Ball Presentation in the C4 White Vs Berowra game – Pritam Dhamija (left) with Agniva Chakraborty (skipper) and Berowra players – Foxglove South – 8 February 2025
When fiction collides with reality
Steve Quanborough, recently retired (we are working on this one), took delivery of a new car during the week and was taken back by the Rego plates – ‘FOQ…’. Quan was a little taken aback as this is an abbreviation for a description he often gets from colleagues and Opposition players when he played ‘F… off Quanborough’.
Photo: Steve Quanborough with his Life Membership plaque (#27) – 25 June 2024
Our elite performers
With just 1 game to go before the Semi’s our elite Club performers are:
Top 5 batters
- Chintan Shah (C4 White) – 409 runs @ 41.0
- Reynaldo Howard (C4 Red) – 405 runs @ 45.0
- Mridul Das (C4 Red) – 396 runs @ 50.0
- Oliver Linschoten (C1) – 387 runs @ 55.0
- Alec Silins (B1 Blue) – 385 runs @ 39.0
Top 5 bowlers
- Pritam Dhamija (C4 White) – 27 wickets @ 9.6
- Manraj Singh (D1 Red) – 25 wickets @ 15.8
- Reyhan Ahmed (C1) – 23 wickets @ 14.8
- Brahadesh ‘Ram’ Ramamurthy (C4 Red) – 21 wickets @ 12.7
- Todd Hutchinson (A2 Red) – 21 wickets @ 21.5
Top 5 wicket-keepers
- Ian Digby (D1 Red) – 18 dismissals (11 catches & 7 stumpings)
- Sufyan Memon (C4 White) – 13 (8 catches & 5 stumpings)
- Sahil Kirpalani – 12 (11 catches & 1 stumping)
- Cameron Bish (B1 Red) – 12 (11 catches & 1 stumping)
- Reynaldo Howard (C4 Red) – 11 dismissals (10 catches & 1 stumping)
- Aden Hanich (C1) – 11 dismissals (11 catches)
- Nick Price (C1) – 11 dismissals (9 catches & 2 stumpings)
- Brent Larkham (A2 Red) – 11 dismissals (11 catches)
Photos: 1). Chintan Shah (leading batter) & Anubhav Ghatak at NTRA – 25 January 2025; 2). Sayantan Sen, Pritam Dhamija (leading bowler); Chintan Shah & Agniva @ Foxglove South – 1st February 2025; 3) Ian Digby (leading wicket-keeper) with Ben Burrows – 23 January 2021