Remaining Draw

There are now just 3 Rounds (6 weeks), remaining before the Semi Finals.

1. Round 9 – 30^th January & 6^th February
2. Round 10 – 13^th February & 20^th February
3. Round 11 – 27^th February & 6^th March
4. Semi Finals – 13^th & 20^th March
5. Final – 27^th & 28^th March

Check out the draw at the Association website – here

Match Reports

A1 Grade (Phil W)

WPHC Vs ARL

No play today due to Ground closures due to wet weather. We play a 1-dayer next weekend. The boys are currently in 2^nd spot and our draw for the remaining games are:

• ARL (6^th)
• St Ives (currently 5^th)
• Berowra (currently 1^st)

A2 Grade (Gunny)

WPHC Vs Berowra

A washout today at Dural Park with a 1-day game next weekend. The boys are currently in 5^th spot and the remaining draw is:

• Berowra (currently 1^st)
• Glenorie (currently 4^th)
• Castle Hill (currently 6^th)

B1 Grade

WPHC Red (Rick) 7/131 Vs Berowra

Rock hard, peachy, svelte, concrete, superbuns and hubba bubba are some words to describe Willy ‘Nice Butt’ Williamson’s backside, according to his wife.

The boys thought it was his Billy Connolly accent and batting strike rate that lured Alexa into his den, but apparently it was his rosy Chaminda. Who woulda thunk it?

Today was really tough. Not only did we need to bat on a wet and slow outfield, but we had to play in Berowra. Whilst COVID restrictions are being eased in NSW I don’t want to catch it. It hurts.

Rick ‘Flair’ Turner won the toss, and elected not to bowl. The new opening combo of Willy ‘Great Butt’ Williamson and Rocco ‘Great Hair’ Rochow got off to a solid start, although the slow outfield and disciplined bowling kept things tight. Lucky we had byes to keep the scoreboard kicking over.

After some early wickets, Willy settled in to work on his butt, by batting longer and squatting more in his stance. Firm. Mrs Willy could hardly contain her excitement, as she rang Ross to feed him more wedding day content for the website. Can’t wait till the bucks Wilbur.

Volc ‘Machine’ Banner and Manus ‘Foggy Glasses’ Dhargalker then came together for an important 39 run partnership, where Labuschagne alphad Volc by hitting the first 4 of the day. Volc made 21 and Labuschagne 25, to validate Flair not opening with Volc, who a Berowra player thought was in his 50’s. I thought he was being generous.

How whingy are the tennis players? Djokovic spends 2 weeks in a hotel room, then doesn’t play yesterday due to hand blisters. No guesses for what he’s been doing.

We finished the day at 7/131, with Prats ‘Cats Lives’ Datar and Snumpty ‘Dylan Snr’ Smyth finished the day on 11 and 10 not out respectively. I’m still trying to work out whether Prats got more chances or Raghu ‘Steve Monegetti’ Chary ran more laps post game.

It was great to have Dylan ‘Snump Jnr’ Smyth there to support, and sledge Gandis for being a vegan. I’m proud of you son. Daddy loves you. Well done to Berowra A1 today, who are coming off a loss, and didn’t play today, so they are still coming off a loss.

In the end, a pretty even day today, like ranking Isu Guha against Willy’s butt. Tough to tell who takes the points, but I know where’d I’d want my callipo.

WPHC Blue (Napper) 0/4 Vs Sydney Lions 82

Greenway was looking in pretty good touch despite the rain. The pitch was given a sweep and a chance to dry up and play began at 1:45pm. It was a toss we wanted to win…… and of course we lost it. We were sent out into the field.

The Lions, who chose to bat, decided to come out and play with dead bats. A strange tactic for a team sitting just outside finals contention in 5th place! Our opening bowlers got us off to a solid start, giving nothing away but without luck.

The introduction of spin brought about a few shots from the batsmen and opened the game up. Rob Knapman took 4/22 as Matt Digby finished with 2/21 bowling his leggies from the other end. Some sharp catching from Birdcage in slip and Nikhil at short leg supported the bowlers beautifully. These catches were out done by a fantastic caught and bowled by Diggers. The ball was hit back hard, low and to his left. Diggers took one step and dived as it stuck in his left mitt with the ball already passed his body. A special catch!!

The effort from Diggers fired the boys up to kick on and get the remaining wickets. Birdcage finished strong with 2/10 and Nikhil Ninan cleaned up the tail with 2/5.

We were left 30 minutes to see off and Tanay Hira and Zac Morris (making his first appearance for the season) saw us through without loss.

B2 Grade

WPHC (Phill H) 8/123 defeated Hornsby 53

From ball 1 today, WPHC dominated.

Our opening bowlers were exceptional. At one end, Scott Chapman (2-12) bowled his best spell of the year, getting the ball to kick from a length and forcing the batsmen back with some of the best short balls seen all year.

At the other end, Tom Hando (5-16) was taking full advantage of the overcast conditions and decimated the Hornsby top and middle order with a superb display of swing bowling. He had the ball on a string – even pulling out an outswinging yorker that went around the legs of the batsman to thunder into the base of middle stump.

After 7 overs, we had them 5-4, and despite slightly more resistance from the tail we cleaned them up for 53 in the 28th over. Steve, Sam and Alec all contributed with a wicket each, but the day belonged to our openers.

Despite the low target, we knew we’d have to fight our way through the same tricky conditions that Hornsby had faced in their innings, and it wasn’t smooth sailing at first. The Hornsby openers also got the ball moving both ways from a good length, and the sluggish outfield made it slow going early on.

Campbell Wallace fought hard at the top of the order, unfortunately falling again to a sharp catch for 22. We passed their total with 4 wickets down, then Warren Schwartzel (33 no) and Steve Ozvatic (32) pushed up the run rate with good stroke play and some lofty hitting.

At close of play, the lead was 70, and with 2 wickets to spare we’re in a strong position to make a strong push for outright points next week.

C1 (Joseph)

WPHC Vs Castle Hill

No play due to ground being unplayable ground so we play a 1-day game next weekend. The boys are in 4^th spot and the remaining draw is:

• Castle Hill (currently 4^th)
• Sydney Lions (currently 1^st)
• Kenthurst (currently 3^rd)

C2

WPHC Red (Fieds) Vs WPHC Blue (Buzz)

The Match Report from Steve ‘Buzz’ Burrows (Blues):

“Too much water on the pitch and the ‘other’ WPHCCC C2 side were frightened by the rain and their opposition, so we will hope the weather Gods are better this week and play a top of the table One Day match next Saturday.”

C3 Grade (Indranil)

WPHC 6/289 dec Vs ARL 1/15

A wet start to the day delayed play by only 20 minutes at the well-drained Campbell Park. ARL won the toss and sent us into bat.

WPH, as usual got off to a good solid start losing the first wicket when the score was 37 after 10 overs. What was very different this week was our whole team approach to batting whereby players valued their wicket and the personal contributions by all players was invaluable to building a good team score.

Vinod (10) and Cameron (35) set the tone for the innings with John Rose contributing with (36) before a great batting performance from Vedant (78) being dismissed LBW. Our middle order fired today with a very handy 41 from Amitive Sen who again played patiently and batted for a whole session and finished not out when captain Indranil decided to declare.

Also a valuable quick fire of 32 from Brent Van Wye and Romel Panday finishing not out on (22) and the time of declaration.

Six overs was all we had to attack the opposition with a fine opening spell of bowling from Amitiva Sen and Screeni Pillamarri taking a wicket in the second over with a nice catch by Shanka Ravi at point.

We are in a strong position in this game and had the ground been dry all day, our run tally may have been closer to 350. Thank you to fellow club players Buzz and Quan for calling in to support C3 and this even included an enthusiastic cameo fielding performance by Quan for an over late in the day.

Well done boys on a total team effort to set up a favourable result next week if the performance standard continues.

C4 Grade (Rob)

WPHC Vs Kenthurst

No play at Les Shore 2 due to ground being unplayable ground so we play a 1-day game next weekend. The boys are in 1^st spot and the remaining draw is:

• Kenthurst (currently =4^th and 6^th on quotient)
• Kissing Point (currently =4^th and 5^th on quotient)
• Bye

D1 Grade

WPHC Blue (Ross S) 109 Vs WPHC Red (Diggers) 1/9

The decider for the Sheep Station Trophy comes down to the third clash at Howson Oval.

Slow start due to plenty of rain but after waiting until 1.45 we were good to go. The Red team won the toss and decided to bowl first.

What followed was a great contest with some exceptional bowling from the Red team and glimpses of great batting from the blue team.

Disco and Connor bowled exceptionally well to start and went to drinks at 18 overs – the Blues were 4/41. After Happy, for the Blues survived an lbw shout from Disco, Rushab picked him up for 23 with a really good ball and great catch behind by Manoj.

Wickets continued to fall and despite a swashbuckling 33 from Ram for the Blue team, they were bowled out for 109.

Disco finished with 2/33 off 11, Rushab 1/15 off 9, Mitch 1/11 off 6 and Rushil picked up a wicket.

Best bowling for the day was from Connor who finished with 5/18 off 13 overs, an exceptional display of line and length bowling.

So bowling the Blue team out for 109 meant the reds needed to face 10 overs at the end of a pretty solid day in the field.

Ross and Pratah batted well before Ross copped a short ball from Ram which he took on his body but trickled into his stumps.

Mitch came in as nightwatchman and he and Pratah and Pratah saw the Red team through to stumps.

D2 Grade (Nirav)

WPHC Vs St Ives

After winning the last match against St Ives we arrived confident to play a two-dayer against the same team at Foxglove Oval.

It was cloudy and drizzling but the ground was in perfect playing condition. After a few games of losing the toss, we won the toss and decided to bowl.

We started well with our pace bowling and got a couple of early wickets by putting attacking field.

At drinks St Ives was 2/41. We got their key batsman out after drinks and St Ives was 3/70 after 24 overs. So far we were looking in a controlling position but things didn’t go as expected.

St Ives’ opener held up one end of their team, built up some good partnerships and started scoring runs targeting short boundaries. A few drop catches didn’t help the situation. You always need some luck to come back in the game and that was also missing today. At tea St Ives was on 4/122.

Our bowling has remained very accurate throughout the season but today wasn’t our day, we also gave away the highest numbers of sundries. We tried pretty much all the bowlers but didn’t pick up the chances we got. We didn’t bowl the line and length we normally do. That sums up how the day unfolded. But that means we now know what to fix and what areas we need to work on. Siby got one more wicket in his last spell. At the stumps St Ives scored 5/238.

I suppose this is an example of a game of cricket where you don’t succeed every time. It will be a long day next week but we will be ready for that.