Round 5 (Day 1) – 5 November 2022
Points table (as at Round 4)
A Grade Red (Cam) – 2nd (18 points)
A Grade Blue (Campbell) – =5th (13 points)
B1 Red (Birdcage) – =2nd (18 points)
B1 Blue (Shomik) – = 6th (8 points)
B2 (Todd) – 1st (21 points)
C1 (Kapil) – =2nd (16 points)
C2 Red (Indranil) – =1st (18 points)
C2 Blue (Rob) – = 4th (13 points)
C3 Red (Cameron) – 7th (8 points)
C3 Blue (Tarun) – = 4th (13 points)
C4 (Hiresh) – = 7th (8 points)
D1 Red (Diggers) – 1st (22 points)
D1 Blue (Arun) – = 7th (10 points)
D2 (Ross S) – 3rd (18 points)
T20 Grand Final
WPHC Blue (Rob) 6/84 defeated Kissing Point 81
Match Report to follow.
Match Reports – Round 5 (Day 1)
A1 Grade
WPHC Red (Cam) 6/120 dec defeated St Ives Wahroonga 80 & 2/15
First things first, I want to apologise for last weeks A grade match report. Regular readers of my column would have noticed the absence of the quick witted, honest and transparent information that you so sorely rely on each week. You would have noticed the spelling errors, the grammatical irregularities, the punctuation missing. I can assure you that you are back in great, hands; this week.
The Glade greeted us to green grass and some sandpits but in fairness to Mr and Mrs S C Johnson, I’ve seen it much worse (FMCG humour, already much better than last week). The showers stayed away and we were instead welcomed by golden showers of sunshine. Many of team showed up a mere 15 mins before play, Sav was a highlight – he rested his head on the pitch and basked in the glory. Spirits were high.
Mass debate raged pre match over the team slogan this year and whether it needed upgrading. We love money was toiled with substitution for we love land, we love property, finders keepers and you lost. More to come on this I’m sure.
Team changes, well we had a plenty. Billy and Mao Gunn were on an exclusive 26 boys to men weekend away to Nelson Bay. Jamakin noted how great the female talent is up there “A+”. J Mac and superstar A Grader Jed Corbett were thrusted into the side. Preedy was at the latest in a stringent circuit of wedding attendances – and yes, he’s still wearing that blue groom suit jacket.
Now to the cricket we go, this glorious madness. Krang lost the toss and elected to bowl, much to his liking – he wanted to go for the throat as early as possible in hopes of a whitewash, a dominant outright display.
SCORERSSSS!! Lichaaa and Krang opened us up, Lichaaa back to his best with two early wickets. More wickets fell to Jack Hando who picked up another two. St Ives were hanging in there though, they were 4 down but showing some grit to limp towards 50. Drinks were called.
After drinks, it was just a blur. 6 wickets fell in about 8 minutes – Tiz the spearhead was the pick of the bowlers with 3. Gandis contributed thanks to an unbelievable catch by Jed Jonty Rhodes Curry Palace Corbett. Tom Hando WIPED the floor late and was able to pick up his first – and then second – A grade wicket. He really is our Ian Harvey of the side.
St Ives bowled out for 80 before tea.
WPHCCCC began to bat and were measured from the outset, Jamakin and Assman knew there were some demons in the wicket and patience is a virtue my friends. The two clawed their way to 30 before Jamakin unluckily had a ball pop up attempting a hook shot, one down.
Sav joined Assman and they contributed the momentum, speeding up the run rate. Krang wanted to declare late in the day, so getting the runs quickly was important. Sav especially was motoring, however he was halted when a St Ives player went down with a calf injury. Him/ he limped off and St Ives half arsed questioned whether we would be able to offer a fieldsman.
Jed Corbett sprung into action and immediately volunteered his services. Whites on, he was rewarded for this generosity by being asked to immediately head to fine leg. A couple of balls later, Sav skied one to the fine leg direction, Jed parked himself underneath it and took the catch. Boy was Sav SEETHING.
J Mac came to the crease and it showed he hadn’t batted in a while, his first ball had his bat fly out of his hands towards square leg. Laughs were had. But J Mac had the laugh last, a timeless innings got us over the line. Other wickets fell late but they aren’t important. 120 we declared at.
Lichaa took the new ball and was furious. He was one of the non-important wickets that fell late in the day whilst we were batting – and St Ives stupidly decided to give him some choice words on his way back to the pavilion.
Lichaaa made a statement early.
A hooping in swinger knocked off stump over of the opening batsman, who was asked to deliver a message to the rest of the team upon his arrival back at the team forest set up.
Lichaa picked up another one late so St Ives are two down. 8 more wickets for another famous WPHCCCC victory.
A2 Grade
WPHC Blue (Campbell) Vs Hornsby 9/271
A picturesque Parklands Oval greeted the Blues as Captain Campbell promptly lost the toss and we bowled.
Tanay had his inswinger going beautifully and had an early wicket, before telling the team he’d forgotten which side the shiny side had to face to bowl in-swing. This is how cool Tanay is, he doesn’t even pretend to be trying and is still good.
With his aviator sunglasses and chain around his neck, Tanay oozes a modern-chic style few can compete with. He has the rugged handsomeness of Dennis Lillee, the sheer presence of Chris Gayle, the aura of Viv Richards and a sprinkling of Keith Miller’s swagger. We are in awe.
Tanay had two early wickets before Jed chipped in by taking the batsman’s off stump. Jed insisted on a passionate appeal for LBW though, the poor umpire did not oblige, Jed forced to have the wicket bowled.
Harry Hando’s second spell was a beauty, he finished the day with three wickets while ever the show-off, Captain Campbell insisted on taking a regulation catch at mid-off on his fifth juggle.
But once again, our performer of the day was 15 year-old Soham.
He held up an end beautifully with flight, drift, turn, guile, all the spinner buzzwords could be applied. Soham makes us all wonder why we weren’t good when we were 15. Or now.
Unfortunately, down to 8 fit players in the field for the last session, Hornsby got away from us and have a good total. We still think we’re in it though, with short boundaries and a good batting deck.
B1 Grade
WPHC Blue (Shomik) Vs WPHC Red (Birdcage) 8/194
Rocking up to the home of the Sheep Station Trophy, Dural Park there was a renewed sense of optimism amongst the boys. Last weeks performance starting to make us wonder if cricket was actually not so bad. More on that to come.
Birdcage ‘if I don’t leave at 4.30 someone’s gonna steal my girl’ Loveridge won the toss and decided to have a bat on what was a cracking looking, freshly mowed outfield. What should have been a day that produced plenty of boundaries on a fast track was thwarted however by Jason ‘can’t believe this guy is teaching our nation’s future leaders’ Garret as he proceeded to set the boundary in another suburb. This resulted in a day which was sort of tough going.
Most of our top order just thought fuck it, not today whilst Zac ‘slop top’ Turner hung around and anchored the innings with an excellent 35 which showed grit, determination and gumption – our 3 favourite human qualities.
At 8/120 things were not looking good and Ray ‘I can’t believe I’ve been roped into another season of this shit’ and Adam ‘going for the gold Logie’ Van Saarloos we’re getting worried we’d be in the field as their Uber eats arrived. Enter Cam ‘our lord and saviour’ Northrop and Matthew ‘the wall’ Digby. What followed was 28 overs of the best tail end batting you will ever see.
Cam keeping out the good balls and despatching the bad on the way to a really well made 60* and Matthew Digby playing anchor at the other end with a resolute 14*. Adam and Ray sat back and enjoyed their double oprego burgers. Cricket was good again (at least for us).
I never got onto Ross Anderson to see where this partnership stood in terms of club records but we are sure it was up there. Well done Cam and Matt. We ended the day on 8/194 and will look to bat on next week.
Needless to say the other West Penno team aren’t too happy with their inability to clean up our tail. They probably hate cricket as much as we did at 8/122. What a sport.
Today we showed that even when we’re not at 100% we have people within the team who are willing to grit their teeth in and get it done. An excellent back to wall performance.
B2 Grade
WPHC (Todd) 8/132 defeated Sydney Lions 9/56
We rocked up to the home of cricket with the sun shining on what looked like a lightning fast Greenway, with a bit of cloud cover which tended to suggested there might be a bit of love for the bowlers today. Lions arrived a casual 10 mins before 1 and would win the toss and elect to bat.
Josh Elliot (1/12) would start us off getting into a nice rhythm and claiming the first scalp of the day after Prats kept everyone waiting with a bit of a juggling act, thankfully he did take it and would avoid the wrath of a fired up quick. After living in his father’s shadow for the past two weeks after watching his Dad bank a 6fa and 10 wicket match, Todd Hutchinson (6/29) decided the only way to get ahead of Craig in the intra family wicket taking was to make sure his Dad didn’t get a bowl… and when you’re the skipper you can just take Birdcage’s advice and just hold up one end for the arvo when opening the bowling…
Chris (Willy) Williamson was brought on and wasn’t in a mood to mess around getting a wicket on his 3rd ball, leaving Sydney Lions 9/56 after 20.3 overs, and a flight delay would claim the wicket of their skipper who still hadn’t made it out to Greenway.
We’d begun our chase, with a few bumps, but another fast start provided by Sam Kirkegard (20) would help take out a good chunk of the total. His wicket would bring Chris (Willy) Williamson to the crease who apparently had done something horrible to their wicket keeper and copped a bit of a verbal onslaught… I don’t know about others but I’ve never heard someone be sledged for having good footwork… or being told that “I looked better batting and I only scored 2” but hey Willy just knuckled down and compiled a very nice 32 to see us past their total.
Prats Datar (30) compiled a very nice knock alongside Jack Hutchinson (15*) to help us gain a lead combining for a nice 40 run stand, and leave us with a 76 run lead and one Dylan Bish coming in at number 11 (due to pizza delivery duties… feel we need to get this into the match reports a bit more…).
C1 Grade
WPHC (Kapil) 1/13 Vs Glenorie 203
WPHCC won the toss and decided to field first.
WPHCC showed patience on a flat wicket and lightning fast outfield. With GDCC cruising at 144/4 at tea to 203 all out, great come back with extremely tight bowling. With WPHCC ended the day at 13/1 in 10 overs, needing 191 to win next weekend with 9 wickets left.
C2 Grade
WPHC Red (Indranil) 9/287 Vs Beecroft
A dry Cheltenham Oval on the cards and first time the WPHC Red Captain had 7 more players at the ground before toss. And with that brings some luck to win the toss and batting first.
A decision received from Reps Association overnight about juniors rep players not allowed to play both junior and seniors game on Saturdays, which meant some of the U15 junior had to be rested. This provided an opportunity for Connor Hindmarch 80, coming down as a fill in from B2s, and opened with Cam Bliss 22.
A quick 44 runs partnership in 11 overs meant a good platform for Ved Virmani 52 to partner with Connor. The pair put on 117 runs partnership for the 2nd wicket, with Ved unlucky to lose his wicket just before tea. Connor enlightened the crowd assembled at the oval, having 12 hits to the fence and pushing towards the 3 figure mark, but slight loss in concentration after tea, was unfortunate to get out.
There was lot of chatter from opposition, but the WPHC Red batters got down to the job and build on small partnerships till the end. Sandeep Darapuneni 34 and Kaushal Gandhi 32 playing in their core team first time this season, showed lot of patience and kept the score card moving.
The Juniors Haseeb 20 and Vishnu 12 experienced the waiting game in seniors, as they got the opportunity to bat only after tea break.
At the end of play Reds were 9 down at 287. Tejas 10 * and Amrit 4* are the not out batsman. Food for thought for the Captain to ponder for the whole week, to declare or not to declare.
WPHC Blue (Rob) 6/88 Vs Mt Colah 111
Match Report to follow.
C3 Grade
WPHC Blue (Tarun) 0/7 Vs Beecroft 191
The week was over, HSC exams had been completed and the sun was out at Greenup, it was the perfect recipe for a great day of cricket.
Captain Tarun lost his first toss of the season and we were invited to bowl first by the Beecroft skipper. Pat opened up with the new Kookaburra, bowling heat and getting the new ball to sing but was let down by his opening partner as I (Jamo) had an opening spell to forget. Poor bowling allowed the Beecroft openers to get off to a lightning quick start with loose deliveries and plenty of extras the cause, leaving them 0-30 off the first 8 overs as Shakeel and Pat consolidated.
An inspired bowling change from Tarun to bring on the Marsden tandem – The Man with the Mullet (Jack) and Mr. Reliable (Matt) shifted the momentum as they beat the bat consistently but were unfortunate to have some passionate appeals contentiously turned down as we searched for our first breakthrough. Finally, Jack received some rewards for his excellent bowling by taking 2/3 stumps of the Beecroft batsman right before drinks, with the innings evenly poised at 1-56.
Post the drinks break we continued to build momentum with dot balls and after Jack took his second and Matt joined the party with his almost-hat-trick, taking 2 quick ones, Beecroft were scrambling at 4-68. Entered – the Beecroft skipper. Coming off a big 114 (red ink) against Berowra, the skipper was out to take advantage of the small Greenup boundaries, going large against the unlucky probing of Bronny Jr. (Bronson) and Michael “North-West”, he quickly raced to 50.
After witnesses claim to have heard his teammates tell him to “put his head down and start again”, he did the exact opposite with an unlikely hero Mao Mao (Louis) picking up 2 more, with the vital wicket of the skipper included.
After tea we heard some more clichés, as stand-in skipper for the afternoon, Rocket Ron told us to “cash in after tea” as Tarun made his way to the SCG. Cash in we did, as Pat got his first, a well-deserved wicket after toiling away all afternoon building pressure, whilst Jack swung the ball round corners to pick up 2 more finishing the day with the best figures of 4-9 (10.0 overs) and Pat finished with a solid economical 1-16 (14.0 overs). Munish then chipped in with 3 maidens in a row eventually castling a tailender suspected to be batting for his average with some very negative shots.
Beecroft were all out for a respectable 191.
Michael and I were told to put the pads on as we nervously watched the last 2 overs of the day as night watchmen whilst Lachlan and Munish cashed in on some late afternoon dross. We start next week 0-7, hoping to chase down the total comfortably.
WPHC Red (Cameron) 147 Vs Castle Hill 1/87
A nice day for cricket at Campbell Park started with Captain Amit Sen losing the toss and being sent into bat. Probably the result we wanted and the innings started slowly but again our batting did not perform as well as it should and moderate score of 147 all out was well below par on Campbell Park.
Hari Shanker top scored with a tidy 41 but there was not much other support and out batsmen really need to step up and build partnerships and ultimately build a good team score.
WPH were dismissed in the last over before the final drinks break and this left Castle Hill with 20 over to face before the end of play.
Castle Hill’s openers got off to a fantastic start and were 79 before they lost their first wicket. Our bowling and fielding was not up to scratch today with 3 dropped catches and way to much short and wide bowling, gifted the batsmen so many more runs than they deserved.
At the end of play the opposition are 1/84 and needing 64 for a first innings victory with 9 wickets in hand. A changed performance is needed next week to give us any chance of a victory.
Sunday game for C4 Grade 6th & 11th November 2022
C4 Grade
WPHC (Hiresh) 6/108 Vs Castle Hill 118
After what happened last match, we just wanted to bounce back strong, especially on the legendary Greenway.
Castle Hill decided to bat first and it was probably a decision that really worked in our favour. Sparsh continued his run of wickets, breaking the back of the Castle Hill top and middle order, taking the first 4 wickets, either cleaning them up or getting them LBW. He finished up with an impressive 4/5 off 6 overs. He was well supported by some great tight bowling including the likes of Jerry (1/20), Anurav (1/14) (Ratul (2/20), who was on a hat trick and delivered an amazing hat trick ball…that went for a wide. B1’s own Alex Chidgey (2/13) filled in for us and made an impact with the ball by getting 2 top edges off short balls that he tried not to bowl.
Unfortunately, that led to 2 dropped catches. However, the West Penno stalwart picked up 2 wickets (cleaning them both up), they just happened to be the last 2 wickets, but he deserved way more than that. Within 39 overs, we bowled out Castle Hill for 118.
Chasing 118 on Greenway, we reckon we were in for a shout.
However, we couldn’t be complacent after what happened before (that was not fun…). Castle Hill’s tight bowling made it difficult to really get the runs flowing. We were 2/16 until Sparsh (45) and Ratul (37) put on 68 for the 3rd wicket. They just preyed on anything short or anything that was bowled actually, to all corners of the boundary. It really set us up for potentially the W on the 1st week.
Unfortunately, we lost a flurry of quick wickets trying to close off the day. Despite that, we closed off the day at 6/108, needing 11 runs with 4 wickets in hand next week.
First point of call is actually scoring those 11 runs to close off the W and then work from there.
T’was a great day of cricket.
D1 Grade
WPHC Red (Diggers) 51 lost to Beecroft 6/140
So I’d like to think that I’d had had, over the past 40-odd years, more good days of cricket than bad.
Today however, was not good.
After a couple of relatively easy wins in the last two matches, we were up against Beecroft, one of the best sides in the comp.
Diggers won his second toss in a row and had no hesitation in batting, given that we were missing Connor and Marcus in week 1.
The less said about our batting the better. Yes, Beecroft’s bowling was pretty good but to be bowled out for 52 is not acceptable.
Anyway, onto bowling. With a small total on the board, we were up against it. Parin, Disco, Zac V and Rommel did their best but at the end of the day, Beecroft had well and truly passed us and were 6 for 150 odd.
I left the book in my car at the pub (no drink-driving kiddies) but from memory Disco to a couple and Parin/zac/Rommel took one each.
Back to Northolm next week to try and avoid the outright.
WPHC Blue (Arun) Vs Kissing Point 168
Another round, another opponent, but looks like Karuah oval is staying with us this season. After a disappointing show in the last sheep station round and putting in some extra minutes at the nets over the week, the team was looking forward to gather some momentum back and it somehow went to plan. The toss happened, even before some of the Cherrybrook lads had left their PJs and were running late, and KP decided to have a bat after Arun called the wrong side of the coin.
KP started off steadily with Praneel Singh steaming in from one end, but we were also glad to have our ‘fully recovered from a broken thumb’ Chintan Shah start of proceedings from the other end.
The first breakthrough came in at the 11th over but KP focussed on building some partnerships which did become a bit frustrating with the next breakthroughs coming at 23rd & 37th overs respectively.
However, the encouraging bit was to see the bowlers sticking to their guts with all of the seamers – Praneel, Chintan, Mridul, Tej & Amith keeping things real tight with not many easy boundaries (something you don’t really see in Karuah). Nirav, Sahil, Agni & also Arun decided to have a crack and provided some much-needed break to the seamers but KP looked a lot more comfortable against the slower bowlers.
Aside some pretty average umpiring, things would have wrapped up even earlier but we managed to bowl KP out for 168 with 10 minutes left in the days play. Given we only had to bat out an over, both the Captains decided to call it off for the day and resume next week.
Wickets went to all the seamers – Praneel (4-25), Mridul (3-24), Tej (2-13) & Amith (1-18)
D2 Grade
WPHC (Ross S) Vs Kissing Point Blue 5/304
We lost the toss and KP decided to bat on a lightening quick playing surface.
The ball swung from ball 1, too much to get wickets. KP openers were intent on survival. In the space of a couple of overs Mridal took 2 quick wickets. But in general our bowling was wayward and too much way down leg side. At the 18 over mark KP were 2/39….24 of those sundries.
Unfortunately the afternoon did not improve after that. We could not keep any pressure on the batters. Bowlers tried hard but at times bowling was everywhere but on the stumps, and fielding was sloppy. And again too many singles…Block the ball and 4 runs on Auluba….it was glass…..We paid dearly though for a number of dropped catches, and unlucky LBW calls, with one of their young U14 players being dropped early and then again before he got to 20…eventually 125no at the end of the day and keeping the innings together.
KP batters were just too good for us on the day, playing to the ground dimensions and were able to string a together a couple of hefty partnerships (5th wicket 168) between young batters, running 12* 3’s and multiple 4s during the innings.
Our bowlers toiled hard with Mridal 2-18 (12), Gihan 1-24(8), Cory 1-21(4) and Henry 1-33(7) including a c&b on the last ball of the day. 2 catches to Henry…
Next week will be a big challenge…..but we just have to bat like they did without risk and knowing getting the ball past the infield is 4.