Points Table (as at Round 12)

A Grade (Cam) – 2^nd (66 points)

A2 Grade (Campbell) – 3^rd (26 points)

B1 Red (Birdcage) – 3^rd (48 points)

B1 Blue (Shomik) – 6^th (32 points)

B2 (Todd) – =1^st (56 points)

C1 (Kapil) – 6^th (43 points)

C2 Red (Indranil) – 7^th (38 points)

C2 Blue (Rob) – = 4^th (40 points)

C3 Red (Cameron) – 4^th (45 points)

C3 Blue (Tarun) – 6^th (33 points)

C4 (Hiresh) – 5^th (41 points)

D1 Red (Diggers) – 4^th (44 points)

D1 Blue (Arun) – 9^th (30 points)

D2 (Ross S) – 4^th (52 points)

 

Match Reports – Round 13 (Day 1 of a 2 days game)

A1 Grade

WPHC Red (Cam) 275 Vs Kenthurst

Match Report to come.

A2 Grade

WPHC Blue (Campbell) 4/35 Vs St Ives Wahroonga 108

We were welcomed by a Glade pitch with a bit in it for the bowlers but by no means unplayable.

A terrific bowling effort by all our bowlers, each one bowling tight lines to really restrict St Ives’ ability to score.

Rowan Keating as always a highlight, he somehow forced the batsman into a sweep shot of sorts from a full toss, the ball striking the back of the bat and lobbing up to a grateful Steve Rochow with the gloves. No-one quite knew what Rowan had done or was talking about, which was a feeling I often had in Year 8 history with him.

We welcomed Harry Hando back from his camping trip in the wilderness and he returned taking two wickets in two balls. After the first, Harry was asked if he wanted a slip. “Nah, I’ll just bowl him”. And he did.

In his next over though, he drew the outside edge, right to where first slip Justin would have been standing, and was standing for most of the rest of the day. Lucky for us, Justin was highly unlikely to catch anything anyway.

Speaking of the fielding, special mention to the efforts of captain Campbell Wallace. Campbell leads by example and showed us all EXACTLY how not to field today. Edward Scissorhands would have fumbled the ball less, while Campbell’s movement had all the grace of a rhinoceros trying to rollerskate. Thank you for your leadership.

Tanay was our best with the ball, 4/10 from 9.3 overs. A superb spell with not a single ball out of place. Much like his exquisite hair.

With the bat, Avi had the St Ives fielders in a trance. After a top edge straight up in the air, Avi somehow convinced the wicketkeeper under the ball to not extend the arms and catch it, rather watch it land in front of him. This newfound confidence saw Avi also glove one straight to second slip, who proceeded to drop the simplest of catches.

Unsurprisingly, Avi was feeling invincible. They could not get him out. Could not. Never. Impossible.

So Avi left one on middle. Obviously the universe forgot to play its part and did not gently guide middle stump out of the way. Shame.

Plenty of batting left in the shed. We’ve got the capability from here.

B1 Grade

WPHC Red (Birdcage) 5/238 Vs ARL

Welcome back guys. After a resounding win, cricket is great again and therefore so are the match reports.

The day got off to a poor start, Captain Birdcage lost the toss.

After winning the toss and electing to bowl one would expect a stacked slip cordon and some attacking bowling. What we were faced with was the most average of bowling and a ring field.

DJ ‘I can’t stop thinking about the womping willow’ missed a straight one, presumably because his mind was consumed by the womping willow. He left for the longest duck in the history of the association (source Ross Anderson).

Cage played his second pretty poor shot in as many weeks to depart for a well compiled 31. At 2/58 off 26 overs, being sent into bat was looking like the right call from the Captain of the rugby club.

Enter Brent ‘they don’t call me Brent for nothing’ Larkham and Zac ‘Ricks son’ turner. They dug in early and got to work building a partnership of 150 odd runs. Unfortunately this victory was soured by the fact that ricks son nicked off for 4 and didn’t walk. The rugby club were not heaps impressed and didn’t shut up about it all day. (He actually didn’t hit it guys).

Highlight of the partnership was Brent scoring the club’s 1816191726297^th century (source Ross Anderson – 514^th actually). Well done Brent you’ve been due.

The long and kind of boring partnership spurred some excellent chat amongst the peanut gallery.

Ray then closed out the innings with a stylish 21 off 10 deliveries, hitting his first ball for a 1 bounce 4 over square leg. His dad was very impressed.

Highlights of the week:

• DJ could not stop laughing about the womping Willow
• Billy Garrett didn’t come to the game
• Rays dad came to the game but Rob enjoyed that.

WPHC Blue (Shomik) 1/13 Vs Hornsby 237

A beautiful summer day at Hornsby Heights was the backdrop for a long-awaited two-day game. Winning the toss, we decided to bowl first, hoping to make early inroads.

Shomik was class in the early overs and got the ball to talk, taking three wickets in his first couple of overs.

It was a grind throughout the day as we were plagued with ball disappearances. Starting with a fresh hardball, we resorted to spare balls kept in the team kit after low gaps in the fencing gobbled up any straight drives.

With a softball, spin was on the cards. Kamran put in a monster bowling effort, completing 18 overs at 2-55. Amit also brought his flight and dip to the party taking 2 wickets.

A quick outfield gave the Hornsby team some lift as they passed 200, but Shomik held strong and deserved more than his figures showed, taking 4-52 from his 13 overs.

A level of disappointment was evident due to the disappearing balls, but I hope for next week as we can see the speed of the grass and the value of shots. I know it is not good karma to wish woe upon others. Still, Kamran, Inzy or Shomik can hit a couple of bangers down the ground; we can be on the receiving end of good ball fortune.

We finished the day at 1-13 chasing 237, hoping that if all the overs are batted next week, we can make it a good shove for victory.

B2 Grade

WPHC (Todd) 3/34 Vs Mt Colah 178

Unfortunately we lost the toss and Mt Colah decided to bat on a warm day with a recently mowed Headen Park.

We got off to a flyer with Todd Hutchinson (4-22) taking 3 wickets in his first 2 overs, including being on a hat-trick, and with a stacked slips cordon sent one flying down leg. We’d unfortunately loose our opener Paul Vink in his 3rd over due to injury.

Mt Colah would form a partnership and be 3/66 at drinks. After drinks Xander (1-20) would get the breakthrough and key wicket of their number 3. Before Josh would also join in with a short, quick, well directed short ball which would catch the gloves on the batsmen and go straight into the gloves of Dylan Bish.

Chris Williamson (1-22) would bowl a great spell with limited luck (which maybe was karma for skipping his 1^st Wedding Anniversary for cricket – what a woman Alexa is, which contrasted their number 5 who should definitely buy some lottery tickets. However the luck would turn and Willy would claim his wicket.

Jack Hutchinson (2-20) would come back into the attack and knock the stumps out of the ground twice, before Craig Hutchinson (1-25) would claim the final wicket.

We’d head into bat for the final hour of the day, and things got off to a solid start with our new opening partnership of Michael “Volc” Banner and Connor Hindmarch (10*).

Unfortunately Volc would snick off and was quickly followed by Willy who feathered one down the leg side.

That brought Dylan Bish (14) to the crease who’d fire a quick few quick boundaries before being our third back in the sheds. A mid-over Committee meeting between Connor and Jude at 5:59pm would ensure that over would be the last of the day and we’ll resume next week looking to dig deep and chase down Mt Colah’s total.

C1 Grade

THE SCHWARTZEL SHOW IN A MASSIVE BATTING EFFORT BY THE C-GRADERS

Brothers Dan and Matt put on a mammoth 144 run stand of 50+ overs on a hot day at the Bannockburn Oval against Sydney Lions. Their bowlers tried their best to get the twins out who looked like Mark and Steve Waugh batting superbly against both pace and spin. The banter on who’s ahead in the scoring kept going throughout their partnership with Dan scoring 71 and Matt scoring 97 to miss out on a well deserved century.

Once their stand was broken, the middle order hammered the bowlers to all corners of the park with Nikhil scoring 34 and Rohit contributing yet again to score 44.

The bowling became listless towards the end with the WPHCCC’ers hammering at over 8 runs/over in the last 10 overs taking the score to 325/8 in their alloted 70 overs.

It would take a gigantic effort from the Lions next week to overcome this massive total. With the WPHCCC bowlers raring to have a go at their top order, we’d put our money on having the points secured in our effort to make the semis in few weeks’ time.

C2 Grade

WPHC Blue (Rob) Vs Beecroft 5/167

Looking to do our best to keep in the race for the Semi Finals, we wanted to have a bowl first on what looked like a perfect day for it. The stand in skipper (Buzz) lost the toss and Beecroft chose to bat anyway, so game on.

Reh and Ben bowled a challenging opening spell, but the ball quickly became divest of lacquer after very few overs due to the sandy surface from the work done to ‘improve’ the oval recently. Beecroft dead batted the first session to be 0-41 after the first 20 overs, and seemed to decide that would be how they would bat for the rest of the days play.

Zia bowled a great spell and despite throwing up some bombs to tempt the batters, it appeared they didn’t fancy scoring any faster nor taking any risks. Dan then charged in and gave the batters nightmares with his pace and consistency, but just couldn’t grab a wicket.

Mudi finally made the breakthrough after sending down a number of testing deliveries with the rag of a ball we had to work with. Al Fullerton was right on the money with his spell and grabbed another pole to keep things balanced in our favour. Mudi used his usual skills to pick up another couple of quick wickets and at 4/73 the great work in the field plus strong and tight bowling had us right in the match. Mudi snaring 3 wickets at this stage.

Further tight spells from Ben, Reh, and Dan kept the batters quiet and each created half chances that just didn’t produce further wickets. Buzz grabbed the next wicket thanks to an amazing catch from Al Fullerton and at 5/120 odd we had worked hard to keep the scoring contained.

The closing hour saw Luke and Al bowl well again, but it seemed that Beecroft had decided to bat deep and were happy to build towards a draw as they sit higher on the table.

There’s loads of possibilities of how next week may play out, and we will again do our best to work towards a win given we can grab the new ball and see if we can’t rip the game open.

WPHC Red (Indranil) 5/311 dec Vs Glenorie 2/4

After a somewhat bitter loss to Beecroft last week, we were looking for a confidence boost against Glenorie.

Beware, you need to hire a Tibetan camel guide to get to Northholm Grammar. Google Maps does the Bermuda Triangle thing past Dural.

The sun was shining down, though it wasn’t as hot as last week. We were looking for an outright win to get a decent shot at 4^th place. Would’ve been ideal to bowl first and roll them. Stand-in captain Amrit lost his first ever toss for West Penno. Demoted.

The opposition put us into bat.

Ved and Ansh opened together. The batting lineup was filled with fire power, and we clearly stamped our dominance onto the Glenorie bowlers by having Ved chip one to the bowler second ball. Alright, no worries. I think he still hasn’t come back from Christmas.

Aayush went out next and got us to solid footing with Ansh before edging it and getting out for 14.

Mr. Bliss then stepped out to the crease in a blissful mood, looking like he has finally mastered his new bat. For me, the most telling characteristic of his innings was the lofted cover drive. In my opinion, if he is crazy enough to play that shot, then he is in excellent touch. He was hitting 4s for fun. Unfortunately, he fell just short of the 50.

Akith went in next. Ansh had been there for a long while. The plan was clear: Ansh was batting the whole innings, while Akith would free his arms. And it worked.

In the next 25 overs, Akith (118 – our 512^th century) and Ansh (100 – 513^th ton) both brought up majestic centuries. This was by far the greatest partnership (191 for the 4^th wicket) that I’ve seen – a Club C2 Grade 4^th wicket record.

Ansh knocked it around and provided us stability. Of course, as he got more comfortable, he put away the bad balls with ease. This was a great comeback by Ansh after a couple of unlucky innings in past matches. Looks like we’ve finally found a permanent opening partner for Ved.

Akith continued in his usual stride by batting solid yet aggressive. He brought up his first runs with a 6. One thing to note: 80 of his 118 runs were off boundaries. This obviously just furthers the theory that Akith has skinny legs and doesn’t like to run. The juniors were saying that he runs for the state. I’m not too sure about that. He saves his legs before the call is made. Nonetheless, very well batted!

While these two were cruising along, an intense debate kicked off on the sideline: when do we declare? Should we decide by time? Declare when we reach the 300? Did we actually need to win outright? Who are our competitors for fourth place playing in these final two games? What happens if we put them in and they start smashing us around? Should we risk losing the game to win outright?

Luckily, we had a very capable stand-in captain in Amrit. What was even more lucky was that in the end, the other team almost declared for us. The Glenorie captain called for an unforeseen drinks break, and by that time, at 5:10 pm, we had made 311 runs.

Oh well, can’t go back out and bat now because it will be for a few overs anyway, might as well save the innings changeover time by declaring now and combining it with drinks.

We went out there with 18 overs to bowl. Their batters were very solid and came in with the mentality to see the day through. We bowled maiden after maiden after maiden. In these 18 overs, I’d say there were 2 or 3 fielders from our team who didn’t touch the ball.

Who knows, maybe they were all just nightwatchmen and the real gun batsmen were saved for next week?

Anyway, after the 18 overs, Glenorie were 2/4. This was a great session and we are clearly on top. But that is to win in the first innings. The outright is very achievable but we must be ruthless.

If the Blues (or any other C2 teams) are reading this, I reckon we will lose this game, so please feel free to draw your game 😊.

C3 Grade

WPHC Blue (Tarun) 183 Vs Berowra 1/50

12:30pm. We arrive at Campbell park, a place with a mixed history to us, most recently a heartbreaking defeat at the hands of West Penno Red. Tarun finally won a toss and we went in to have a bat today.

Our 2 openers, Jack and Lachlan got us off to a great start, scoring 63 runs in the opening partnership before Jack (20) decided to play some tip and run and hit it straight to a fielder, who ran him out. Jay then arrived at the crease but unfortunately went soon after our first drinks break.

Our skipper, Tarun (25) came out to bat and looked good in the process, forming a solid partnership with Lachie and got us up to 129 before the skipper was dismissed. Another one of our experienced heads, Peter (16) came out to bat and hung around, seeing us reach the 45th over and eclipse the 150 barrier. Peter landed a few lusty blows but had to go for 16.

This triggered an almighty collapse, in which we lost 6-28 as their 2 spinners, one who was Cam Green’s height bowling gentle offies and an Under 14’s leg spinner, dismantled our lower order, as well as claiming the wicket of Lachie, who was dismissed for the cursed number, 87…

Our lower order read like so: Sam (3), Riley (6*), Shakeel (0), Pat (0) and Nath (0). Fair to say that the tail did not wag. As a result, we had to bowl 13 overs before the day’s play was drawn to a close.

In those 13 overs, tensions were high. Jack (0-13) and Jay (0-17) had the ball constantly beating the bat. Despite Shak (1-19) spraying it a bit, he got into his work and picked up from where Jack left off, getting the batters to play and miss, and got us our first wicket, with the ball flying to gully where Michael West (AKA the safest hands in the hills district) snared the ball and we had our breakthrough.

Stumps were called but overall, a subpar performance today considering our start with the bat. Still well and truly in this game but our bowling will need to be spot on.

WPHC Red (Cameron) Vs Kissing Point 215

WPH lost the toss and KP elected to bat at Arcadia Oval.

Our opening bowlers – Amit Sen and Vikas Goel had a terrific spell 18 overs, the opposition were 2/29. Then a couple of decent batsmen came to the crease and really lifted the scoring rate. The sessions went like this:

• Session 1- 18 overs (29 runs)
• Session 2 – 17 overs (66 runs)
• Session 3 – 17 Overs (55 runs)
• Session 4 – 18 overs (65 runs)

Wicket takers for today include Amit Sen 2, Hapi Rana 2, Makund Venkat 2, Brijesh Sharda 1, Vinod Kumar 1 and a massive effort from Aniket Mahindre bowling 18 overs finishing with 1/42.

A couple of good catches today by Hapi Rana and Rohit Bhulla and some nice catches behind the stumps from Hari and Brent.

We have a big job ahead of us next week and we are not sure if a declaration will occur or if KP will bat on a little with their final two batsmen. In any case, our batsmen must stand up next week and build on small partnerships to get to this total in 70 overs or perhaps less.

C4 Grade

WPHC (Hiresh) 6/52 Vs Hornsby 85

Well then… Get ready for yet another classic WPH performance.

We got our day started at the Holland Reserve where we lost yet another toss, the boys are convinced that the Skipper is a bad omen when it comes to the toss, safe to say that was not the best birthday gift he could have asked for. However it’s not all doom and gloom as we were sent out to bowl which was the plan all along.

The vibes were high until we went to have a look at the pitch which was quite literally tilted. The bowlers were still up for the challenge, however Jerry’s first over proved to be “interesting” as it consisted of 2 no balls and one wide. But not to worry as the bowlers regained their rhythm as Bala put on a quality display of swing bowling adding pressure onto the batsmen, soon after Jerry got the breakthrough with a wicket with only 10 runs up on the board. Due to the constant pressure applied by the opening bowlers we were able to limit Hornsby to a low score but that could also be due to Hornsby’s opening batsman’s refusal to play a single shot.

However, the change of bowling which brought Arnav into the attack got us a breakthrough, piling even more pressure onto the batsmen, which also rewarded Bala with a very well deserved wicket who soon after finished his stunning 7 over spell with an impressive 1/5.

Soon after we had another change of bowling which got Jags into the attack along with the young Jagbir.

As Hornsby were starting to get into a comfortable partnership Jags got us another wicket pushing the game back into our favor. With the momentum in our side Jagbir got yet another first ball wicket with an absolute peach of a delivery. After a couple of stale overs with the batsmen still not playing anything the skipper decides to bring himself into the attack and oh boy what an impact he had, 2 quick wickets in his second over curtsey to our star fielder Meet with two glorious catches (One of them was definitely the catch of the season).

Nevertheless, one issue still remained as their opening batsman still refused to play a single shot. So we brought Jerry back into the attack who got us three quick wickets which finished the innings after 38 overs and got Jerry a 4 wicket haul. The most remarkable thing apart from their opening batsman getting 17 not out after 38 overs was our very own Ratul’s determination to ruin the shine of the ball by constantly throwing the ball just short of a fielder in attempts to get the ball back to the bowler (We still love you Ratul).

Anyways the target to win was 85 sounds simple right?

Well, you forgot one very important detail, this is WPH after all. We went out to bat with 28 overs in the day remaining. The vibes were immaculate but not for long as we lost our first wicket with 11 runs on the board as Captain Hiresh had to depart for 5. But on went Bala who held a solid partnership with Arnav but was then dismissed for 12 runs with 34 on the board.

This is where the panic bells were ringing as we lost Arnav, Ratul and Jags in quick succession. With about 8 overs remaining in the day and us needing 40 runs to win, Meet and Mahesh went onto the crease with one thing on their mind “Block. Block and Block” and that they did as they stuck on the crease till the very end of the innings as Meet unfortunately was dismissed at the very last ball of the day.

So we go into next week with 35 runs to win with 4 wickets in hand, it’s going to be a close one but the boys still are determined to battle through and grab that win.

PS a special thanks to Jagbir for filling in for us this week and not only bowling some stunning deliveries but also having to deal with Ratul’s non-stop commentary.

D1 Grade

WPHC Red (Diggers) 256 Vs St Ives Wahroonga

We turned up to Foxglove Oval with three U13 juniors helping out, Dan, Kristian and Harry, which we were extremely grateful for their help.

Disco had plans of batting first, but for the second game in a row lost the toss but was surprisingly asked to bat.

Ross (9) and Cliff (41) opened the bat and put on a good partnership, seeing off the new ball which was swinging from both ends and we were 1/33 at drinks. Unfortunately Harry was stumped early in his innings, but looked good up until that point. Ramil (16) started to tee before being caught in the deep. Cliff and Kristian also were out shortly after Ramil and suddenly at the break we were 5/80 after the great start.

This brought Connor (95) and Rommel (23) to the crease and quickly built a strong partnership before Rommel was dismissed. Dan (5) was next in but was run-out from a good throw from the deep which is unusual for a D grade fielder! Marcus (12) joined Connor at the crease and again another solid partnership was built before Marcus fell with the score at 8/185.

The last two wicket partnerships between Connor and Gus (16) and then Connor and Disco (2*) saw another 71 runs added to the score in 20 overs before Connor was caught in slips in the last over, ending a fantastic innings on 95.

The final score of 10/256 has put us in a good position but we will need to bowl well (and straight) on the Foxglove wicket to push for the win.

WPHC Blue (Arun) 72 lost to ARL 4/83

It not very often that D-graders get a chance to play in a ground like Mt. Kuring-Gai oval and we were as excited as anyone else would have been. The team arrived to a ground which probably looked to be the best we played at so far this year.

Arun won the toss and decided to bat on what seemed to be cracking conditions to put up a reasonable total and take it from there. However, that hope was short lived. With a strong cross wind blowing over the ground into the freeway valley, the ARL opening quicks started bowling some incredible swinging deliveries, so much so that even Arun was caught off guard, so were the rest of our top order (this bit isn’t really a surprise anymore this season). With the score reeling at 5/26, Praneel tried to push the brakes a bit till he got caught behind by another killer delivery, however some shots he played were pure class and even had the ARL team concerned.

Nirav presented himself to be the best batter of the lot, seeing off the quicks and then trying his hearts out to take us to a respectable total. He finished for 20 not out which showed incredible grit and determination but we hope someone stuck together in the crease.

With a score way below par to defend, we started off well with Praneel and Ravi, the latter picking up their opened in his third delivery of the spell, but what followed was a series of dropped catches, missed run out opportunities which again should have been converted. Nirav and Agni bowled some beautiful spin bowling which we haven’t seen in a long, long time with Nirav deservedly picking up a wicket but Agni got a tad bit unlucky with 2 missed stumping opportunities which would have changed the dynamics, probably in our favour.

We would look to wrap ARL up as soon as possible next week and try and save the outright and if the stars align then, who knows!

D2 Grade

WPHC (Ross S) 129 Vs St Ives Wahroonga 2/23

A must win game for us as we sit in 4th place and a fight for a semi-final spot playing 5th place St Ives.

Boundaries markers spread to the dimensions of the field, the biggest boundaries we have played on all season.  The skipper won the toss and had no hesitation batting on a hot afternoon.

Ross and Ray started off strongly, playing it safe. A few lusty shots from Ray progressed the score to 23 before the skipper was out when he missed a full toss.

A really good partnership between Ray and Mridal…took us to the first drinks break at 1-60….well placed…..

Just after the break Ray was deceived by a slow ball for a well-made 34. Unfortunately the theme of our season continues as we lost a clump of wickets in the space of a couple of overs to be 4/66….and in a precarious position….

Sach and Gihan them played really sensible cricket moving us along to 4/101 off 38 overs at the tea break and in a much stronger position.

After the break though there was not much positive to say. Sach 26 and Gihan 19 batted well, but again a batting collapse losing 6/23 off just 12 overs to be all out for 129. Whilst there was some steady bowling and a couple of good balls, our batting was very disappointing given the importance of the game and the effort of the top order to preserve their wickets and bat overs…

With 16 overs to bowl it was important we took some early wickets. Ram and Mridal started brilliantly. A speculative one hander behind by Ray off Mridal, then an unplayable Yorker in the next over by Ram…St Ives 2/0……

Unfortunately some decisions did not go our way over the final few overs, St Ives finishing 2/23 at close of play.

The pressure is on next week to take 8 wickets for less than 100 runs to lock our spot in to the Semis…else it comes down to the last round.