The Final farewell
Last week we did a story on Steve Quanborough’s (D1 Red) last game before retiring from cricket after 25 years of amazing service. It was great that this happened to be a Sheep Station Trophy game between the Reds & the Blues. It was a fitting finale.

Before going out to bat, Quan took a call from Denise Annetts, the great Women’s Test cricketer wishing him well. Add to this James Makin, our Seniors Director and the person who brought Steve to our Club was in attendance. Finally, both Teams formed a guard of honour as he went out to bat.

How did he go? He scored a boundary first ball and finished with 24 runs.

It doesn’t get much better.

Photo: the Guard of Honour for Steve by the D1 Red & D1 Blue sides.

A new kid on the block

Move over Ray Khamis (B2), the official Seniors ‘Numero Uno’ Master Blaster who makes a habit of destroying Opposition bowlers. Ray holds the record for the most number of 6’s in an innings (11) plus the most successive 6’s in an over (5).

There is now a new kid on the block – Samkit Shah (U12 Purple) who belted 62* in just 25 deliveries that included 9 x 4’s and 3 x 6’s. At Team level, the boys ended up chasing down the target of 102 in just 9.5 overs.

Looking for an excuse to add the link to the fabulous duo between Tracy Chapman and Luke Combs at the Grammmy’s – Fast Car

Photo: Samkit after his dominant innings

Girls Spirit of Cricket

On Saturday (10th February) our Girls had their wonderful ‘Spirit of Cricket’ & Pink Stumps Day event at James Henty & John Purchase Ovals. This involved our Stage 1, 2 & 3 Girls playing competition T20 games against visiting Teams from the North Shore Competition.

This season we have 77 Girls playing all forms of cricket – Blast, Juniors (Mixed) & Girls which is a Club record and shows the pathway that girls cricket in our area is on.

For info, we started Girls cricket in 1996/97 and since then have registered an amazing 1,213 girls.

Our most famous alumni are Test Cricketers – Denise Annetts and Lisa Stalakher who have both set amazing records in International cricket.

Photo: International Women’s Day – Girls Stage 2 (Ages 10 & 11 years) – John Purchase Oval – 7 March 2023

A gathering of legends

In ancient Greek Mythology (for Ray Khamis’ – B2 – benefit) a gathering of legends is referred to as ‘a lore-keepers assembly’ or as a ‘Coven of Legends’.

On Friday 23^rd February at the Sports Club 17 players from the great A1 sides of 1979/80 to 83/84 are gathering for a reunion. There are also a number of players from this generation who went on to win our first ever A1 Premiership in 1988/89 and finishing their dynasty with 3 straight Titles.

We will do another anecdote after the night but get a load of their collective performances:

• Total games played – 2,329
• Total runs – 48,870
• Total wickets – 1,505
• Catches – 932

Photo: The A1 Grade side of 1985-1986. From left to right: Peter Handel, Alan Swan, Ross Anderson, Mark Dell. Front row: John Giddings, Greg Fiedler (C), Craig Russell, Greg Stoneham & Brent Dornan. Lying down – Warwick Barnes. Storey Park 1986

Space Cadet

A special day with Grant Gerber (D1 Red) being elevated to the heights of a Space Cadet. To make this even more prestigious, with Grant’s elevation to this level of achievement he joins his son, Zac, who is a two times winner. So for the first time we have a father & son reach this pinnacle. So what does it take to reach these heights?

Grant arrived at Greenway Park at 1.10 pm (probably closer to 1.20 pm) to be ready for a 1.30 pm start. This is the first problem as it is a 1.00 pm start. What confused Grant is that everyone was on the field (Greenway Park) with the game underway so he thought he was at the wrong game. It became more confusing when the Umpire waved to him.

Grant eventually realised that it was the right ground, against the right opposition but he was 30 minutes late.

The Chess game

Most people go back to the Club after games to either celebrate or drown their sorrows and engage in increasingly meaningless as the drinks flow. Not for our B1 Blues who enjoy the intellectual pursuit of …Chess. It was great to see Dylan Bish, Jude Boyle and Ben Burrows queuing up to play each other with the excitement palpable. We are not sure who the eventual winner was as the enthusiasm of the spectators was rapidly taken over to getting back to what happened during the Day’s play.

Photo: Dylan Bish & Jude Boyle – after a tough days play – WPH Sports Club.

What would your decision be?

The striker has a runner. They hit the third ball of the over and the injured striker, their runner and the non-striker all run. They have all completed one run when the wicket at the bowler’s end is fairly broken. The ball is then thrown to the wicket-keeper, who fairly breaks the striker’s end wicket. There is an appeal. How shall the umpires answer it?

Photo: Nirav Desai (D2) receiving the Trophy from Umpires Chaminda Egalla & David Bostridge @ Cheltenham Oval 27th & 28th March 2021.