Points table (as at Round 4)

A Grade Red (Cam) – 2^nd (18 points)

A Grade Blue (Campbell) – =5^th (11 points)

B1 Red (Birdcage) – =2^nd (18 points)

B1 Blue (Shomik) – = 6^th (8 points)

B2 (Todd) – 1^st (21 points)

C1 (Kapil) – =2^nd (16 points)

C2 Red (Indranil) – =1^st (18 points)

C2 Blue (Rob) – = 4^th (13 points)

C3 Red (Cameron) – 7^th (8 points)

C3 Blue (Tarun) – = 4^th (13 points)

C4 (Hiresh) – = 7^th (8 points)

D1 Red (Diggers) – 1^st (22 points)

D1 Blue (Arun) – = 7^th (10 points)

D2 (Ross S) – 3^rd (18 points)

 

Match Reports – Round 5 (Day 2)

A1 Grade

WPHC Red (Cam) 6/120 dec & 3/50 defeated outright St Ives Wahroonga 80 & 2/15

Hello my loyal readers, welcome back. Something a bit different this week to start, I want you to close your eyes. Breathe in deeply. Now exhale deeply. In deeply. Out deeply. Now ask yourself this question. Would you ever steal from a small business?

Our match report starts at Karoo and Co cafe in the hustle and bustle of the Fox Valley central business district, just a stone throw away from The Glade. Many of the players congregated prior to the commencement of play for lunch and a coffee. All of which received said lunch and coffee. All of which paid for said lunch and coffee. All of which. except for Billy Gaunt.

For you see readers, we live in a free market economy. When you purchase a good/service, you pay for that good/service. Especially relevant for a small business, such as Karoo cafe, who are no doubt struggling with the inflationary pressures and weakened consumer sentiment in the Australian economy. They are the forgotten people, the blue collar suffers which fuel our caffeine hit each and every day. I’m sure all of us understand that basic principle. All of us except Billy Gaunt

Billy decided he would pretend he is a 6 year old and ordered a vanilla milkshake. Very British of him. The milkshake was made with tender loving care, delivered in a glass schooner which sprinkles of love laced on top. It was delivered by the owner of the cafe, with the nicest manners and the utmost gratitude. Billy consumed the milkshake. And like a thief in the night, stood up. Walked away from the cafe and proceeded to escape to the ground.

Let be clear here. Billy did not pay.

Word spread quickly on whether Billy had potentially paid earlier, or if someone had paid for him. Both scenarios were quickly ruled out, everyone had an alibi – meaning Billy was on the lam. When confronted at the ground, Billy tried to fob it off, it was accident, it was Cams fault, he won’t notice, it was Mabo. All of which were met with disappointment from the team.

Gandis especially pleaded with Billy to turn himself in. Mr and Mrs Gandis frequent the café regularly, how could they possibly turn up and show their faces again while connected to this crime. Cam, Lichaaa and Gunny lead a chorus of the team wanting Billy to go back and fess up, pay the $10 for the milkshake and plead for charges to not be pressed. After all the social pressure of the team, Billy caved – he walked to his car and drove back to the cafe to pay.

But did he pay? All players at the ground wanted to check his card statement upon his return to be sure he did the right thing. Billy returned – “I paid him in cash”.

You be the judge.

While all this kerfuffle was going on, a few other pre game highlights happened. Tom Hando turned up in his full whites. Mrs Assman made her first appearance at cricket. Assman is so in love. It’s really great to see.

Ok take a breath. Let’s go to the cricket, this glorious madness. 7 wickets to get for outright and a full afternoon to get them. Captain Cam warned it would take some time to chip away at the them, many in the team scolded at that – we were expecting to be done by 2pm. Cam was right and we were wrong.

St Ives dug in and really fought hard for the first hour or so of play. The scoreboard was ticking over nicely too. Gas was able to strike on the stroke of the first drinks break, his pitch map scattered all over the wicket but he got one to pop through to Billy “Vanilla” Gaunt, who was able to take the catch. Sav also got a wicket in this session, his Ian Harvey craftiness too much for the St Ives batsman. Do you know he got Lou Vincent out once?

St Ives continued to fight after the break and were beginning to rotate the strike more – they would have scored more runs if it wasn’t for some great ground coverage from Ashane D’Fielder. Krang threw the ball to Lichaaa and we finally were able to get some momentum back. Tom Hando taking a blinder in the covers to dismiss their best batsman. Assman telling Gas in the wicket huddle “there is no way you would have caught that”

Lichaaa was able to close the innings off fairly comfortable – his last 3 overs were 4/0 in his favour. He finished with 6/13 off 14. Sav got the final wicket, no Nick Larkin but he will take a solid 2fer for the day. St Ives limped to 49 ahead

50 to win and Krang played the diversity card – Ashane and Tiz were asked to open. KA McBrien confused the two, mistaking Ashane for Tiz. Jamaican then confused Tiz for Ashane. Seriously sometimes all you see is darkness.

Ashane was desperate to leave early to see his girlfriend. Krang warned him that if he got out, he was not allowed to leave early, otherwise he would be d’ported….. to the Sunshine Coast. Ashane heeded that warning. He made a quick fire 30 to be the leader in seeing us home.

We got the runs comfortably but another highlight was the St Ives tactics to Gas, who was elevated to 3 after his golden duck last week. They obviously read the scouting report because it was relentless short balls and body line tactics. He made a good 4 – not describing the track rating, he made 4 runs.

A great outright win. It gives us good momentum heading into playing the other WPHCCCC team next week. I haven’t done this in a while, and it’s my bad, but wanted to express a big thank you to our loyal fans that came out to watch today. Foundation members, the Hando family – thank you.

A2 Grade

WPHC Blue (Campbell) lost to Hornsby 9/271

Scoreboard doesn’t tell the story here.

At 3 for 7, our run chase was in all sorts. Once again 15 year-old Soham took it upon himself to resurrect things with a wisdom and maturity beyond his years. This boy has the brightest of futures, not just on a cricket pitch, in life.

26 from Soham and 34 from Keats (very much at the other end of the age scale to Soham) but at 7 for 96 a win was off the table.

So to the trenches we went. Dogged. Resolute. Defiant.

Hornsby had all 9 fielders around the bat at points. Appealing for every single delivery. Justin batted for 34 overs, Sammy Hando for 27 overs and unbeaten at the end.

From 7 down before tea we went well into the last hour but fell about 10 overs short of holding on.

Would’ve been nice to pinch a draw but we were comprehensively outplayed. It’s onwards and upwards to next week’s derby. Who doesn’t love an underdog. Like Australia A in the 94/95 quadrangular series, there is no pressure on us, only opportunity.

B1 Grade

WPHC Blue (Shomik) 9/200 defeated WPHC Red (Birdcage) 199

Ending the week at 8/194, the Reds wanted to pile on as many runs as possible for the last two wickets. Shomik was inspired by my comments about bowling 15 overs for no wickets the previous week, so he cleaned up the tail and set a manageable total of 200.

The rock-solid Sagnik continued to show his opening batting prowess, similar to last week against Berowra. He lasted 32 overs and made 39 runs, setting a stable platform for the boys; his focus and commitment to seeing off the shine of the new ball is a great asset to the team. Kamran dealt only in fours and ones for a quick-fire 21; every ball would be either a dot or sent over the boundary. Harsh made 10, and they kept the strike rotating at the other end.

But with Sagnik departing on 5/82, Alec and Amanpreet set up for the long haul. They had to decide whether it was appropriate to go after the bowlers and head towards a winning total or bunker down for a draw.

It is well known that to play for a draw, you must play your shots, which is precisely what Amanpreet did. Amanpreet worked aggressively to rotate the strike and keep the runs ticking with glorious fours and a six. All the runs primarily came from Amanpreet during the 6th wicket, as Alec could only make 15 of the 65 partnership. Unfortunately, Amanpreet could not make his second 50 of the season. He fell agonisingly short at 42, trying to swing Diggers into the following postcode. 6/147.

While the Red team focused on taking Amanpreet’s wicket, they completely disregarded Alec. He had already spent 25 overs at the crease. In the next 14 overs, he rocketed from 11 runs to 60 runs. Shomik was so nervous that he did not use the bathroom for a good hour and a half because, in club cricket, a wicket always falls when someone goes to the bathroom.

The boys wanted me to talk about how I hit two mammoth sixes, but when you try to swing across the line and smash a pace bowler two balls in a row and get bowled middle stump for 60, you get brought back to reality. I want to call out Mohsin and Amit for both staying composed when the scores were level, and the red team only needed one wicket; neither team was in the mood for a tie. 9/201.

Great work, boys; the first win of the season is a way to get the campaign back on track.

B2 Grade

WPHC (Todd) 8/132 defeated on forfeit Sydney Lions 9/56

A real shame after the boys had a convincing win last Saturday. Unfortunately, the Lions have headed off to the MCG to watch to T20 Final and have forfeited day 2 when an outright was looming as a likely option.

C1 Grade

WPHC (Kapil) 8/204 defeated Glenorie 203

West Penno Won on the first Innings 👏🏻👏🏻

Chasing down 200 runs in less than 60 overs with 2 wickets to spare shows the quality and depth of our C1 West Penno side. Everyone contributed with the bat to secure the win.

I was very impressed with our team spirit as we never gave up hope but each player stood up to do the job that was set before us.

A stable platform set up by Matt and Nikhil set the side to a good start from which the team could then capitalise on.

Remarkable standouts today was Prashants bating, scoring 77 runs in 37 overs. The partnerships at the end between Prashant, Kapil T and Warren, was crucial in taking the side home to victory.

The game was played in really good spirit by both sides and the cricket was entertaining on a very fast outfield.

C2 Grade

WPHC Red (Indranil) 9/287 dec lost to Beecroft 7/292

With last week score of 287, the Reds was confident to defend and invited Beecroft to bat. We lost one of our opening bowlers to big Finals at the “G” and just hope the weather hold ups there otherwise a big sacrifice in vain.

Vishnu and Connor started off bowling the right line and length but with no success, as the openers was very patient to let go most balls. With some change of bowlers at both ends did not bring any luck and Beecroft at first drinks break was cruising nicely 0/60.

The Red kept on attacking and has the slower bowlers at one end and med pacer on the other end. The first breakthrough came in the 33^rd over with Amit 1/41 getting a plumb lbw decision. At tea Beecroft 2/152 and with their openers back, Reds fancied their chances to get few quick wickets.

Some dropped chances did not help after Tea but the bowlers kept the pressure on and chipped wickets here and there. The last hour needed 42 runs to be chased and 5 wickets in hand. Rizul Gulati 2/62 showed brave heart to get the team back with an excellent stumping of one of their settled batsman and then clean bowled the next batsman.

It’s to be admired the young 14 year old spinner who bowled 16 overs on the day and had control right through. Kushal 1/34 and Tejas 1/28 chipped in with wicket and Vipin orchestrated an excellent run out. Beecroft got home with 3 wickets in hand and 6 overs remaining.

A big shout out to Todd Hutchinson to come down and field and helped to save so many vital runs on the outfield.

We move on to the Sunday round with no of core players showing in form and hopefully we can turn this around.

WPHC Blue (Rob) 8/169 defeated Mt Colah 111 & 3/107

Match Report to follow.

C3 Grade

WPHC Blue (Tarun) 105 lost to Beecroft 191 & 6/74

While we might have lost, one thing for sure is that we certainly enjoyed ourselves under the warm sun at Greenup Park. After all, what’s cricket without a sprinkle of spice garnished on top?

Chasing 190 for our second victory of the season, the boys were pretty confident rocking up to the ground, especially upon sighting the lack of knee-high grass across one side of the field that had saved 20-30 runs alone the previous weekend – big ups to whoever took out the whipper snipper over the week and gave it a little trim.

Beginning the innings at 0-6 after facing two overs last week, we got off to the worst possible start with Lachlan running himself out second ball… the less said about it the better.

Then, in the very next over, Jack secured himself a lonely walk back home by firing his old mate Ron LBW – the first of three we ended up giving and certainly not the most dubious of the lot.

Unfortunately, the start we got off to set the tone for what was ultimately a very disappointing day with the bat.

Although the Beecroft bowling wasn’t exactly top notch, every now and then they were able to produce something and that combined with some poor batting decisions saw us lose regular wickets, never really giving ourselves a chance at chasing down what should’ve been a very chase-able total on such a small ground.

Munish’s retirement at drinks after feeling crook for the opening hour of the day’s play certainly didn’t help proceedings, leaving to go to the doctor – hopefully he’s alright and it’s nothing too serious. His unbeaten 15 was the third highest score of the innings, only topped by Mat’s 18 and Jack’s 20 – batting for the average as usual and finishing with the classic red ink.

Our final total of 105 was 84 runs shy of Beecroft’s and we all began packing up, preparing for an early trip back to the pub before Tarun returned from his lengthy conversation with the Opposition to inform us we were – for whatever reason – bowling again.

With some tensions boiling over after confrontations earlier in the day, the final 21 overs of the day were nothing short of exciting, with both sides taking several jabs at one another, particularly after it was noticed that half of the opposition had gone home as if they weren’t expecting us to do too much damage. Pat (1-11 from 6) immediately proved them wrong, their opening bat chipping a deadly inswinger straight to Mat second ball, who – as always – took the ball safely. It would be the first of six wickets we took in the final hour or so of play, with Jamo (2-11 from 6), Jack (1-14 from 4) and Micky “Northwest” (2-10 from 2, including a double wicket maiden) all reaping the rewards for their probing bowling.

Beecroft finished their rather pointless 21 overs at 6-74 as we showed why our bowling attack was not one to rest on and that, on a different day, perhaps we could have achieved a different result.

But what’s happened has happened and now the team are looking forward to our return to the spiritual home of WPHC cricket, Campbell Park, for our next match against Kissing Point.

WPHC Red (Cameron) 146 lost to Castle Hill 4/196

Today’s task was to take 9 wickets for 62 runs to win the game after Castle Hill made a tremendous start in the last session of week one finishing at 1/84.

Our bowling display today was quite good with a very positive opening spell by John Rose and Amit Sen. Wickets were hard to come by and at the first drinks break, Castle Hill had passed our score and expressed their desire to go for an outright win. However, after drinks, our bowlers dug deep and restricted their score and took a couple of dismissals with two smart catches – one by Hari Shanker behind the stumps and the an excellent caught and bowled by Brijesh Sharda.

We were outclassed by Castle Hill’s youthful side, however there were some very positive areas of our game that give hope for the matches ahead. Particularly with our bowling which I felt was pretty good but again we must improve with our catching and ground fielding.

Sunday game for C4 Grade 6^th & 11^th November 2022

C4 Grade

WPHC (Hiresh) 9/178 dec defeated Castle Hill 118 & 3/105

D1 Grade

WPHC Red (Diggers) 51 & 8/152 lost to Beecroft 6/140 dec

Losing after the first day wasn’t great and turning up at Northholm for day 2, 88 runs behind isn’t a great feeling.

Anyway, trying to secure the extra 4 points for an outright, Beecroft declared before the start of play and we found ourselves back at the crease.

Unfortunately our batting woes from week 1 continued and we lost regular early wickets and at the drinks break we were 4 down for 39. The only bright spot early was from Ross, who played some superb shots on his way to 37 before having his concentration broken by engaging in a conversation with the Beecroft keeper.

Zac G came in and, playing his usual game, scored a quick fire 20 before missing a straight one in the over before tea.

So at tea, 7 wickets down and needing 6 runs to make Beecroft even bat again, things didn’t look great.

What followed was some stoic batting from Quan, further entrenching his stature as a Club Legend, first with Gus who made 17 in his 12 overs at the crease and then with Parin, who made an unbeaten 14.

They batted for 25 overs to see off the Beecroft outright hopes and secured what could prove to be a vital 1 point.

Quan finished unbeaten on 30 off about 56 overs, his 569th not out for WPHCCC.

Once again, plenty of work to be done to consider ourselves serious contenders but plenty of positives to take away from this match.

WPHC Blue (Arun) 7/173 defeated Kissing Point 168

Finally, a game worthy of some form of remembrance. We knew how badly we wanted to be on the winning side of things and the past week was spent trying to get the morale of the team up and running and we are glad to come out on the winning end.

The weather God’s made the day near perfect with not a pillow of cloud in sight and we knew if we stuck to the basics, we would be unstoppable.

Skipper Arun led from the front with a blistering start to the innings and KP were trying all means possible to sneak in a leg before. Their very experienced opening bowler kept getting a lot of movement of the surface however Arun decided to counter attack and soon we were cruising at a healthy run rate of 5.5-6 per over at the first drinks.

Ravi opened the innings and was looking solid till he fell for a mistimed shot. Praneel came in and started being Praneel Singh, something which all of us have missed for a long time…..a really long time. After some heavy hitting he fell to a great catch against the sun but we were already at 2/93. The next couple of batter fell cheaply but Arun kept the scoreboard ticking at the other end till he fell to a brilliant caught and bowled with 50 odd runs to get.

The middle order had a job to do and with our recent history of collapses, we knew we had to push the brakes momentarily. Agni did exactly that and with ample support from the rest of the lower middle order and sneaking in some singles kept getting us close to the target. He stayed not out at 32 with some beautifully timed boundaries towards the end, something which would give the team a lot of confidence.

We passed the target with 3 wickets to spare. Arun (70), Agni (32 not out), Praneel (27), Ravi (14), so all up a solid effort by the squad and hopefully this is the start of a good few weeks till the Christmas holidays.

D2 Grade

WPHC (Ross S) 5/334 defeated  Kissing Point Blue 5/304

With KP declaring at the start of play, we knew getting over 300 to win would be a tough task, but with the ground conditions the same as last week and a hot day we knew we just had to be patient for the runs to come.

Roger and Ray opened the batting. Unfortunately Roger got an inside edge and was dismissed in the second over…Disaster the following over with Sach also dismissed of an inside edge – 2-6 off 3 overs…..not the start we wanted. Ross then joined Ray and both were looking solid, taking boundaries, but with the score at just 18, Ross got a leading edge and was caught for 12….

Mridal then joined Ray, with both batters playing positively…at the first drinks break we were 3/62.

After the break both batsmen played solidly hitting boundaries and running a few 3’s and 2’s…With the bowling very wayward Mridal (34) was unlucky to be dismissed down the leg side hooking and just getting a fine edge to the keeper- 4/95 and still a lot to do. Gihan then joined Ray. With counter attacking play we were 4/128 of just 34 overs at the tea break. Ray making a patient and graceful 50 no with no chances….

After the tea break, one of their bowlers tried bowling short to Gihan. 3 * 4’s in a row, but unfortunately a short one off the final ball was hooked straight down the fielder’s throat. Gihan making a well-made 35 including 6*4 and a 6…5/148….Ram then joined Ray.

For the next 21 overs we witnessed the most enjoyable cricket you would ever want to see, with both players pulling apart the KP bowlers. 4’s and 6’s galore, with heaps of cheeky singles thrown in….still plenty of overs to bat though if we needed to force a draw, but the lads had other ideas, playing really sensibly, and not playing the rash shot. At the 5pm drinks break we had accelerated to 5/260 off just 53 overs….Ray not out on 97 and Ram 61….an unbroken stand of 114…….

Message was clear….do as you are doing nothing silly….and that’s just way at the guys did…..First ball after tea a glorious cover drive saw Ray reach his first Century in only his third  game of seniors. A wonderful achievement as he should still be playing juniors.

With the KP bowlers and fielders spent, both guys then took it up a notch hitting 50 of just 4 overs…we passed the KP score of 304 with Ray on 107 and Ram on 97…..

Wanting to give Ram the opportunity to get his first hundred (having been run out on 99 twice in 20 plus years of senior cricket), we batted on with the intention of stopping play as soon as the milestone was reached.

A bit of a delay though as Ray as hit 4, 4, 6, 4, 4 before Ram got strike. Milestone finally reached in the 58^th over ………with us finishing on 5/334. Ray batting through the innings with a chance less 127no (and our 503^rd Century) and Ram 100 no (our 504^th century)…….and an unbroken partnership of 188 of just 21 overs…. Ray 20*4 @ 2*6, Ram 15*4 @ 2*6….

What a great win today…..well done guys after tough conditions last week…..