Remaining Draw

We are now in the last Round of Competition before the Semi Finals.

1. Semi Finals – 13^th & 20^th March
2. Final – 27^th & 28^th March

Check out the draw at the Association website – here

Match Reports

A1 Grade (Phil W)

WPHC 54 & 7/121 lost to Glenorie 194

Welcome to the A Grade match report and welcome to a tantalising semi final between WPHCCCC and Glenorie. The winner would advance to the grand final and be showered in praise. The loser would be bow out immediately, subjected to bitter disappointment and intense questioning. Read on to see which side of the fence YOUR A grade side fell today.

We arrived at the ground with a plan. To win the toss and bowl. The wicket was a bit green and looked to have some action in it early. Assman arrived at 10.10 for the 11am start, a new PB and the team were certainly shocked to see him arrive so early. He brought the speaker which was a huge plus. Wu also said hello to Coach who was in her scrubs for work “are you actually a nurse or do you just dress up like one?” he remarked. He then complimented Effie on her wonderful personality.

Side note on this one before we move on, Coach dreamt this week that she ran over Wu with her car. A sign of the love and respect in their strained acquaintance.

Back to the toss and Gittins, the medium sized wombat as Gandis affectionately calls him (blood relative to Gandis) had the rub of the green – he elected to bowl. It is at this point I would like to pause and say how smitten I really am for Gittens. Uncle Glenn really is one of you old school buffs. We are lucky to have him as part of our extended family, albeit if it is a second step cousins’ uncle to Gandis.

And to the cricket we go, this glorious madness. Our batting had been out kryponite but today we were determined to Get. It. Right. Assman and Jamakin opened us up. Gav was 3. The Lawerence brothers took the new ball. Boy we had a contest on our hands.

The contest was won by the Lawerence brothers. 1/0 turned to 2/0 turned to 3/0 in just three overs. We were in desperate trouble – Assman, Jamakin and Gav all gone. Effie came out more attacking and got us off the mark. 3/1. The cartel had something to defend.

Whilst Effie fought, the wickets tumbled around him. Preedy, Wu and BC Gaunt all went quickly meaning that 5 of the top 7 batsman got ducks. 5 of our top 7 batsman got ducks. I repeat for emphasis.

Effie kept going until he was undone by Tully for 23. When he was dismissed, the score was 7/27…. this brought the cartel to the crease, they needed runs.

Thanks to some great hitting from Gandis, supported by Tiz, Lichaaa and Cam, we crawled to our all out score of 54. We were dismissed before lunch on day one. All out. Skittled. 54. 54. I repeat for emphasis.

We were deflated. And we did what any disappointed team would do. We went to the changerooms, got Ass’ speaker and pumped some James Blunt and other related sad songs. The mood was sombre. Very sombre

With that great mindset we entered the field knowing if we could get early wickets, we would be half a chance. The cartel clamps needed to be applied, hard and early. Lichaaa and Cam took the new bowl, the two most economical savvy bowlers in the comp, how could it go wrong.

Oh it went wrong. Quickly. Went south at a rate of knots. Lichaaa was smashed to all areas of the park and didn’t look like getting a wicket, two huge sixes back of his head had him at a loss on what to do. Glenorie raced to 50 off just 6 overs – with a maiden!! One of their batsman was going ballistic and he was taking a fancy to Lichaaaa

Lichaaa had only one option, he pushed a deep mid wicket back and bowed a short ball, hoping the batsman would sky it. So here he is, comes in bowls and this is short and pulled away by Jones, hard, low, fast, that is a cracking shot, but there is a fielder there, Taylor, Gav Taylor, dives to his right, one handed, has he held on!? YES!! The catch of the summer by the retiring veteran. A screamer.

And Gav was PUMPED. Even though they only needed 5 runs to win on first innings, Gav was yelling at the troops to get them pumped up, the adrenaline was flowing, Gav had taken the best catch of his illustrious WPHCCCCC career.

From here the wickets began to steadily fall, despite Glenorie continuing to stack on the runs. Highlights of the bowling innings:

• Tiz getting M Tully caught behind to secure his first A Grade wicket. Well done Tiz and throughly deserved.
• Assman coming on and destroying the middle order of the Glenorie line up. He landed a few pearlers, including a double bouncer that inspired Wu to start calling him “John Howard”
• The retiring Gav getting a wicket with the worst ball in his career, it almost rolled. Gav was excited. The cartel were virtually unmoved, unsure whether to celebrate such poo
• Jamakin coming under scrutiny for disagreeing with an LBW shout turned down. He then caught the very next ball sharply at first slip, hurled the ball into the ground with speed and took a huge divot out of the turf. We look forward to Jamakin front the match review panel this week.

Lichaaa “heyyyy miiiiiiiiiiiiichael” Lichaaa finished off Gittens to have Glenorie bowled out for 190, a lead of 140. Lichaaa took 4, Assman 3, Wu 1, Tiz 1, Gav 1

In we went to bat again and it was only just after tea. It could be all over today. Surely we could bat better this afternoon.

Assman, on a pair, went in the first over for another duck. Two in the one day. 1/0. Effie came in 3, and joined DA Silva back in the sheds the very next ball, 2/0. De ja vu?

Well not for Wu. He joined Gav at the crease and started teeing off, hitting Lawerence over the trees, OVER the trees for 6. Keep in mind he was on a pair, with us at 2/0 and he CHARGED the first ball he faced….He fired a quick 28 and had a 50 odd run stand with Gav, he was dismissed going for another 6. Gav kept the run rate going with a couple of 6s of his own, but he was also dismissed, this time for 21.

A standing o greeted Gavin as he departed cricket for the final time. A wonderful career closed in emphatic fashion. The curtain down. It was time for greener pastures. We wish him all the very, very best. Gav Teddy Taylor.

WPHCCCCCCC fought late in the day, cameos from BC Gaunt, Jamakin and Lichaaa had us 24 behind at stumps with three wickets in hand. Win viz has the odds against us, but you never know your luck in the big city.

B1 Grade

WPHC Blue (Napper) 1/50 Vs Berowra 121

Going into the Semi Finals finishing in 3^rd, we knew we had to take 10 wickets to have a chance of advancing to the Final. We were keen to bowl first and put on early pressure. Once again Naps lost the toss……..Berowra chose to bat.

Tanay Hira and Anush Sharma shared the new ball and bowled great opening spells without luck. The normally aggressive Berowra openers were playing very tentatively as they tried to just eat up overs. The early introduction of spin brought about a few half chances. Naps sent down one of his trademark full tosses to the Berowra Captain who managed to hole out to Eric on the boundary.

Diggers bowled a couple of tidy spells of his tricky leggies. Diggers beat the other Opposition opener all ends up and Gunny was able to get the bails off to have the batsman stumped.

The fielding standards were high with some great catches. Nikhil Ninan took a sharp snatch inches from the ground under the lid at short leg. Tanay held on to a great 2 handed diving catch at backward point. Birdcage tried to outdo Tanay’s effort with a solid dive at mid-off to hold on to one off Diggers.

Tanay bowled a fantastic 2^nd spell as he knocked over the stumps twice and got another trapped in front.

At 8/72 Berowra dug in and ate up another 20 overs before Diggers and Nik got the final 2 wickets.

Tanay 3/13, Diggers 3/27, Naps 3/30 & Nik 1/7

We were left 10 overs to bat in the day. We wanted to make sure we started positively and scored as many runs this week as we could. Nandu Ramesh started off with a flourish as he sent the ball over the fence twice in the 2nd over. Unfortunately Nandu holed out for 19.

A great start to the run chase, finishing 1/50 from 10 overs.

Despite the chance of weather playing a part, we have put ourselves in a solid position to chase down the opposition total!!

B2 Grade (Phill)

WPHC 3/92 Vs Berowra 122

None of us had any experience with Caddie’s Creek Reserve, but our first impression was positive as we were greeted with the best outfield we’d seen all year. Add to that some fairly short boundaries and decent weather, and it looked like the batsmen would get full value for their shots. But some persistent cloud cover over Kellyville gave the leadership group pause for thought… and after winning the toss, we decided to send Berowra in to face the music.

It was all edges early, with almost all of Berowra’s runs coming from edges and flashes through the slips and gully. Tom Hando (4-35 off 17) bowled exceptionally well up one end. His opening spell of 14 overs (we think, we lost count) showed excellent pace and control, collecting our first wicket in the 9^th over thanks to a sharp catch by Campbell Wallace at backward point.

Scott Chapman (2-8 off 4) almost immediately followed suit, unsettling the Berowra skipper with some good balls short of a length before drawing him into a lofted cut which was comfortably handled by Alec. Scotty struck again a few overs later, crashing into the front pad for a plumb LBW and at this stage Berowra were looking decidedly shaky at 3-34.

Our great strength this season has been the relentless pressure we’ve been able to build with each bowling change, and it was no different today as every one of our bowlers hit their spots almost immediately.

Steve Ozvatic (1-5 off 3) proved he was the man with a plan once again, out-thinking the opposition batsmen with balls moving both ways. Mithun Mithun (1-15 off 7) continued to mesmerise the opposition with the smoothest action in the comp, and showing he is still adding to his game with some quality away swing. And Alec Silins (2-23 off 8) bowled beautifully through the middle overs, giving nothing away and hitting the pegs twice to keep the wickets falling at regular intervals.

Only one batsman got runs for Berowra – partially thanks 4 dropped chances and a catch off a no ball – and he came out swinging after the tea break when he started running out of partners. When Tom Hando came back on, it didn’t take long for him to finish the job, taking 3 quick wickets and finishing up the innings for 122.

With 20 overs left in the day, we needed our batsmen to make a statement leading into next week, and Campbell didn’t let us down.

After losing Jack Hando early, Campbell settled into an outstanding partnership with Tim Worthington, making the most of the conditions hitting strong, well timed pushes into gaps and letting the outfield take them to the boundary. When Tim fell for 19 with around 30 minutes to play, Campbell continued to accelerate, knowing that it was likely that he may not make the start time next week and wanting to get us as close to the target as possible. He brought up his 50 in style before eventually falling for 57 in another fine innings when it mattered.

Basil Butler (12 no) and Ben Dunkerley (0 no) were left to steadfastly see out the day, and will start up again next week needing only 31 more to pass the Berowra total.

Strong week of cricket all around from our B2s!

C2

C2 Blue (Buzz) 0/4 Vs WPHC Red (Fieds) 150

The WPH Derby started with a little photo-shoot with Ross getting as many photos as he could, whilst letting everyone know that “size does matter” showing off his large camera to both teams.

Although WPH Blue are higher on the table, the mighty Reds walked in as the favourites. The Reds were missing Craig due to him pulling his hamstring last week. And as all fathers are a role model to their sons, Jack then pulled his hamstring at school on Friday, leaving the team short of one player.

However, as we are the most charismatic team to ever play C2’s, we had a line of men begging to fill in for us from the lower grades. None were keener than Vinod, who was overjoyed that he found a way to escape his daughters 16^th birthday party. Although Vinod fell early to a deadly onslaught from Paul Vink, a day playing with the strongest C2 side in existence was indeed way more appetising than his daughter’s birthday.

Cam (the better Bish, who will be referred to as the Alpha Bish for the remainder of this report) Bish and Nick Duck steady the ship showing great patience in what was a very tidy first session from the Blues.

Completely aware that they were facing the superior WPH team, the lesser side re-entered the field with their heads dropped in submissiveness. The Duckster and Alpha Bish displayed why we are indeed the best team, by hitting the Quan all around the park. The Quan was embarrassed about his bowling efforts so I thought I will announce his figures of 0/30.

Nick fell for 24, and Adam went to the crease continuing his good form. The weaker side was on the back foot, until they brought Josh Elliot back into the attack, taking 2 much needed wickets. The Alpha Bish continued scoring and reached his second 50 in a row. The celebrations were short lived as Dylan (beta Bish) got a lucky wicket on his brother, sending the Alpha Bish back to the sheds for 51.

Waris (12), Maz (12), and Naiyyar (13) all chipped in in the last session to get the radiant Reds to a total of 150. The lesser side was left to fend off two terrifying overs to end the day, and although they were shaky, they managed to survive the day 0/4.

With still 146 runs to chase, and with another moist week ahead, it’s looking tough to see how the Blues can ever chase down this monster total.

C4 Grade (Rob)

WPHC 1/54 Vs St Ives 106

Fresh off a two week bye we turned up eager to play cricket again. After a great regular season, the boys were pumped to play a semi final.

And what a great start we had. Capt. Rob actually won a toss, and we chose to field and bowl. As we finished higher on the ladder, the aim was to bowl tight and leave it to St Ives to make the play. But we knew they would chase runs and give us a decent total, as they have to win.

But it didn’t quite pan out that way. Slow batting was the order of the day early. And with some outstanding bowling from our boys, wickets also tumbled regularly. At first drinks break we had them 4/12 (20ov) and by tea break they were 6/66 (37ov). And we ended up bowling them out for 106 in the 54^th over. As mentioned there was some outstanding bowling. Reyhan 5/13, Will 2/10, Luke 1/5, Daniel 1/21 and Mudi 1/10 were supported well by Alastair and Roger.

With 14 overs left we went out to bat. Kamran was looking great until he was dismissed by one of the dodgiest LBW decisions I have seen all year. The ball pitched out side leg and was then smashed into the pad off his bat! Aden (22no) and Luke (24no) then steered us to stumps without losing another wicket.

So we come back next week chasing 53 more runs for the victory and a ticket to the GF.

D1 Grade

WPHC Blue (Ross S) 9/132 Vs St Ives 7/92

We turned up to a very fast looking Cheltenham oval to play 4th placed  St Ives, who had beaten us only a few rounds earlier.

With 10 batsmen this week due to injury, we were still looking to win the toss and bat, however St Ives won and sent us in so we did get what we wanted.

With both our openers out injured, a new pairing of Muthindra and Gihan, got us underway confidently, scoring 15 off the first 4 overs, before we lost our first wicket with Muthindra (10) falling to a late in swinger.

Gihan and Waman then batted confidently taking us to 1-36 in the 10th over before disaster struck, first Gihan (12) then 3 more very quickly, losing 4 wickets for 2 runs off the next 5 overs. Another batting collapse, which has been the ongoing story of this season. At 5-38 things were not looking good again, however Waman and Aayush then studied the ship taking us to 72 before we lost our 6th wicket…

Credit to the lads for toughing it out, and building partnerships with Waman. Over the next 15 overs Ram, Sach (11) and Mike put on another 60 runs. We finally lost our last wicket when Waman (64) was dismissed. With one batsman short we finished with 132. Not a huge score but something to bowl at.

With 29 overs to play we were intent on taking wickets….and the bowlers did not disappoint with the first 4 wickets all clean bowled. A hostile spell from Ram and Happy. At the 15 over mark St Ives were 4-46 with Happy (3-19) and Ram (1-16)  giving us the start we needed. Happy was also unlucky not to take a hat trick when his hat trick ball almost got thru….

St Ives then began building a solid partnership, looking very dangerous, however with the score at 55, Ani took a screamer in slips off Ayush. St Ives 5/55 and we were in the game.

At one end one of the St Ives batsmen started hitting out, whilst at the other we managed to snare 2 cheap wickets, first a runout after great fielding from Waman, then Muthindra knocking over off stump St Ives 7/73 and in trouble. Unfortunately we could not snare another wicket before stumps Some big hitting at the end got with St Ives 7/92 at stumps.

Big thanks to Mike Kinchington (D2) coming up to play with us, and Rick Turner our super sub giving us 11 in the field……..

We go into next week with our season on the line…..We need to take 3 wickets and protect a 40 run lead….

WPHC Red (Diggers) Vs Hornsby 6/96

Finishing in 3rd place has us needing a win to progress to the GF. Things went to plan, winning the toss at Mills Park and we set about getting 10 wickets. Unfortunately Hornsby, as they are entitled to do, are trying to play out a draw and appear to have built their game plan around a weather forecast.

Anyway, we bowled pretty well and created a couple of chances but Hornsby’s openers saw them “power” through to the 40th over with the score on 51. One of their umpires offered a drinks break 20 minutes before tea and we happily had a quick rest.

Rushab then took two quick wickets in the second over after the break and suddenly they were 2/53 at tea.

Our bowlers continued to bowl well and we took most of our chances to have Hornsby 6/96 after 79 overs at stumps.

Best bowling was Rushab with 4/19 off 22, ably supported by Connor (1/24 off 16), Lachlan(1/22 off 20) and Disco (0/7 off 12).

So Hornsby have effectively batted themselves into a bit of a hole and if the weather forecast doesn’t go their way, we should be able to pick up the remaining 4 wickets cheaply and knock off the runs needed for victory.

D2 Grade (Nirav)

WPHC 9/58 Vs Thornleigh

Report to come.