Anecdotes – Round 4 (Day 2)
Brothers in Arms
First up, our theme music for this anecdote – Dire Straits – Brothers in Arms
During the weekend game, Harry Hando took his first A1 wicket having come up from A2 as a replacement player. There was though a record that occurred in Round 2 (30 September) that will take a lot of beating.
In this game, brother’s Tom (Club Player of the Year 2020/21), Sam and Harry Hando (Club Outstanding Prospect 2022/23) all played – if Jack (Club Player of the Year 2021/22) wasn’t injured, it could well have been 4 brothers playing!
In our 92 year history only once before have 3 x family members played A1 Grade in the same season. Way back in 1963/64, 3 members of the Donaldson family played A1 but this included the father (Don) and twin sons (John & Ken) so this is a first for 3 x brothers and later this season when Jack is fit it could well be 4 brothers.
This isn’t the highest number of brothers playing in our Association A1 though.
In the early days of cricket within our Shire (1890’s), family teams were common. The South Colah Cricket Club had 18 sons of Patrick and John Duffy of Thornleigh, Dural CC was sustained by the seven sons of Thomas Best, Pennant Hills CC by the 10 sons of Arthur Thompson and Castle Hill CC by the eleven sons of John James (source: Claire Schofield: The Shaping of Hornsby Shire 1988 p86).
Photo: B2 Minor Premiers & Premiers (2020/21) after winning the Premiership Vs Castle Hill RSL The players are:
Back row:
Steve Ozvatic, Scott Chapman, Tom Hando, Peter Lee (Umpire), Tim Worthington, Phill Hando (Captain), Damien Lewis (Umpire), Basil Butler, Sam Hando
Front row:
Ben Dunkerley, Cameron Bliss, Alec Silins, Campbell Wallace, Jack Hando, Harry Hando
It is not what you have but how you use it
Got a great story from Steve Quan from the D1 Red game on the weekend. As background, Cliff Greenhalgh scored a great 108 – his first ton after 55 innings for our Club while using his own new willow that went unnoticed – until last week. His son, Angus also plays and was showing off his new bat:
“Before play Gus was showing off his new bat with a lot of oohhs and aahhs from all around over the huge chuck of willow 3 lbs 2 for the record.
However it’s not what you got but how you use it.
Enter father Cliff opening the batting scoring his first century for wphccc 108 at Campbell park 4:20pm.
For the record Gus gets another week to polish his bat.”
The benchmark has now been set to see how the young buck performs with his new bat Vs his da with an antique bat.
To finish up – a musical introduction with a great song – Eric Clapton – Its in the way that you use it
Photo: Cliff and Angus after the ton.
Career best performance
Patrick Watkins (C3 Red) had a match to remember. In the first innings he took 8/23 to demolish ARL for just 52 in their first innings. His previous best was 3 wickets in an innings! Come Day 2 and Patrick takes another 2 to get 10 for the Match – only the 53rd time in our history.
It is a rare achievements with only 41 players in our history taking 8 wickets or better in an innings. A few insights into this achievement:
• The last time 8 wickets in an innings were taken was back in 2016/17 with Simon Smyth (A2) took 8/20 & Ishaan Singh (C3) took 8/40
• This is the 12th best 8 wicket haul performance in our history
• The best figures for an 8 wicket haul is 8/13 by Riley Miedler (A2) in a Semi Final
• In 2013/14, Tim Scoular (A2) took 7/3!
If you go one better for players who have taken 9 wickets in an innings only 3 players have achieved this milestone with the best being 9/28 by N Lobsey (C2) in 1972/73
Only one player has achieved the ultimate of 10 wickets in an innings – Ben McNamara (D1) who took 10/42 back in 2006.
Summer weddings
Great news with Michael Gunn (A1) getting married last weekend. The flip side is that weddings during the cricket season can result in all sorts of gaps in weekend Teams. Last weekend, our A1 side was down 8 players – 2 injuries, 5 at the wedding and 1 player on night shift.
This gave a lot of our A2, B1 & B2 players an opportunity in A1. The result – the boys bowled out Hornsby for 202 and finished with a draw – an unlikely but amazing performance with so many players unavailable.
A debut to remember
As a follow-up to the anecdote about the Summer Wedding, this also created opportunity. One of these was James Makin’s 13 year old son Oliver, who fielded on Day 1 of the game. To quote James:
“On the bright side, my Oliver (13) got a chance to field with some A1 and 1st grade stars
Great learning for him.
And he got a run out 🙂 You could see they were looking to take on the “little guy”. Little did they know, he’s a gun in the field. I ran over and said “I think you’re on here” and sure enough he cooked them on the next ball.
So good.”
Photo: James & Oliver Makin at a recent Association Rep game. Along with the Makin’s is Jude Boyle (B1)who was also the Rep Coach – October 2023.