T20 Competition
The T20 Competition match reports follow:

1st Grade (A1 Grade) 152 lost to St Ives 161 – St Ives won the toss and batted first. Greenway is always a tough place to contain runs and it was difficult from the get-go. The St Ives top order batted well and we never really got any momentum going. A couple of good innings from two of their players in particular boosted them to an 8-an-over 161. Wickets were shared between our bowlers. Michael Robertson took a great high catch in the swirling wind, which was the highlight of the innings.

Our run chase started promisingly, with Fat Connell and Philthy Wurth setting us up with a good platform. Fat ended up top scoring with 39. With 11 an over needed in the last 10 overs, Alex & Michael Robertson smoked a couple of quick 20’s to give us a chance. With 35 off the last 2 overs the game was lost but not without a fight, with Keats, Raffa & Buckets Scoular getting us very close, falling just 9 short. Unfortunately our bowling wasn’t consistent enough and we struggled to dry up the steady flow of runs St Ives put on us. Nevertheless, there were many positives and will be stronger for next round now that we’ve got the cobwebs out of the way.

2nd Grade
Blue (B1 Grade ) 5/136 defeated Galston-Glenorie 8/121 – we won the toss on a slow, muddy Gilroy College with a side that consists of many of the A2 players for this season. A quick fire 24 from Dan Costigan got us off to a flyer as we were 1-26 off 3 overs. Finished on 5-136 with Michael Richards being the stand out with a classy 61, with Daniel Fiedler (26) and Mateesha Gunaratne (13*) pitching in as well.
Bowling wise, Richie (1-9) struck early with a wicket in the 2nd ball of the innings. Even though Galston were looking sharp through the first 10 overs, we steadily cleaned them up as they finished with a score of 8-121. Stand-outs with the ball included Costo (3-6 off 3 overs), Taki Manolelis (1-11 off 3 overs), and Tim Leyshon (1-13 off 2 overs). An excellent result for the first game of the season!

Red (B2 Grade) 133 lost to Castle Hill RSL 4/147
It was always going to be a tough game against the strong Castle Hill side.We loss the toss and asked to bowl. We bowled consistently well, but chances just would seem to go to hand. Castle Hill finally ending on 4/147 on a fast Dural outfield. Wickets were spread around with Pat Phillips, Calvin Breytenbach, Chris Williamson and Ravin Wijeasuriya taking one each.

The De Silvas started out run chase setting a fantastic platform with an opening stand of 57 off 5 and a half overs. Dinesh ended up with 36 and Anushka a well compiled 60. Although we continued to bat solidly and draw closer to the total with Julian Raffel scoring 23, we still needed 20 off the last 2 overs with wickets in hand. The bowling was too tight and we fell 14 runs short, finishing on 133.

3rd Grade
Blue (C1 Grade) 4/106 defeated Mt Colah 102 – we lost the toss today, but weren’t phased with having to bowl first. The aim was to have a good hit out in preparation for the main season, and so we shared around the bowling duties between 8 players. New man to the Club, Rob Hitchcock performed solidly on debut taking 2/19, but the bowling honors went to Semonn “Wild Thing” Oleksyn, who took 5/18 off 4 overs – 4 of them bowled. He worried all of Mt Colah batsmen with his pacey skiddy deliveries most of which even Semonn didn’t know where they were headed. We managed to dismiss Colah for just 102 in the final over with a score that was always going to be hard to defend on a fast Campbell Park outfield.

Our turn to bat, and we attacked straight away with captain Andrew Fiedler adopting a cavalier approach at the top of the order, top scoring with 35. Good cameos from Michael Gunn (16), Mikey Fiedler (19) & the returning Matty Marsden (17 no) were enough to see us knock off the runs for the loss of just 4 wickets inside 17 overs. This team will form the bulk of the C1 defending premiers side, so we are off to a promising start as we attempt to hang on to our well-deserved trophy from last season.

Red (C2 Grade) 5/100 lost to Hornsby 2/101 – a good hit out to loosen up tired muscles, a number of batsmen got some time in the middle with Joel Behlevanas top scoring and continuing on from his good form last season with 40.

Some good signs early in the season from Nikki O’Meara and Dave Behlevanas both bowling well. Nikki and Ravi Shankar were the wicket takers with one a piece. Highlight of the day was Ian Paterson’s catch at slip when their top scorer got cute and decided to reverse sweep straight to the waiting Patto at first slip! A few more runs needed next week, but great to be back on the paddock!

4th Grade
Blue (C2 Grade Red) 6/129 lost to Thornleigh 130 – the season got off to a good start winning the toss and sending the opposition into bat. Rob Knapman (3/19 from 4) got the first breakthrough in the 2nd over thanks to a well taken catch by Matt Digby at deep square leg. Stu Fiedler took a great catch in the 4th over, covering plenty of ground and finishing off with a great dive! This effort has set the standard for the season to come. Matt Digby (2/18 from 4) bowled the perfect T20 line making the batsmen work for every run. Diggers eventually got the reward knocking over the stumps twice in two overs.

Chasing 130 on a fast Thornleigh oval, we were confident we could give it a good shake. Joel Herzog set about trying to rein in the total single handed, blasting 59 in a quick fire innings. Brent Larkham (40*) played a fantastic knock in the final overs of the innings to get us into a position of requiring 6 runs from the final ball! Brent faced the last ball and connect sweetly, but unfortunately the ball fell short bouncing twice before crashing into the fence. A great game to get the season underway. It’s great to get out there and amongst it again!

Red (C3 Grade) 6/82 lost to Berowra 2/83 – sunny afternoon with windy conditions, winning toss was a good start to the new season. We bowled first and our bowlers kept good hold on proceeding while conceding 31 runs in first 10 overs. Our first wicket came in 11th over to Narendra Kulkarni who bowled a very tight spell to finish with figures of 2/6 of his 4 overs. Pav Kozreev (0/14) of 4 overs and Tom Poole (0/8) of 3 overs were other major contributors with the bowl. Berowra finished 2/83 of 20 overs.

Chasing a small total, we lost our first wicket in 6th over with score on 19. Next 6 overs we lost 3 more wickets with addition of 13 runs. This was when our top scorer Richard Hughes started batting and scored quick fire 25 no to give us a chance to chase down the total. Cameron Bish (12 no) and Zac Turner (8 no) almost made it past the required score.

Requiring 13 to win of last over, first two wide balls kept us in the hunt with third ball smashed to boundary for a 4 by Cameron. A dot ball was followed by 2 and then a 4. Three of last two balls was good T20 entertainment for all present. Next ball was hit well straight but equally well fielded without a run. Last ball was again hit well but only a single was possible to finish game just 1 run short of opposition score. Overall a good day where boys had fun and made few new acquaintances.

5th Grade
Blue (C4 Grade) 4/99 lost to Castle Hill 9/104 – we won the toss and elected to bowl. This Castle Hill side are known as big hitting T/20 specialists, so we were happy to hold them 104 in their 20 overs. Our main wicket takers were Ryan Loveridge 2/18, Roger Friend 2/1, Thiru Pukazhenthi 1/11, Rhys Flynn 1/21 and Dinal Silva 1/22.

Our batting started steadily if a little slowly for T/20 competition. At the halfway mark we were 3 down for 36 runs. However a fine aggressive knock by Rhys Flynn 32 not out, gave us a fighting chance, however we had left ourselves a little too much to do and fell 5 runs short. Max Harkin 17 and Cody Waters 14 were the other batsmen to reach double figures as far as the scorebook was concerned.

Red (D1 Grade) 4/154 defeated Galston-Glenorie 143 – the team was made up of 6 new players to seniors for WPHCCC which included players playing from U/14s through to men that had not picked up a cricket ball in 20 years. With shirts handed out and getting to know each others names, we lost the toss and were asked to bat. Zac Morris (19 runs) opened with evergreen dad Andrew (55 retired) and they put on a fine opening partnership that set the platform for our team. Siby Joseph (21 runs) from last years D2s excelled after Andrew’s retirement and with Steve Quanborough (25 retired) kept up the momentum. Dylan Bish (13 runs) also got a few after top scoring in juniors and Sullivan O’Brien (6*) finished the innings in style after a few swings and misses with one out of the middle sailing over the fence. Welcome back to cricket young man!

Our turn to bowl and as per the plan everyone had a couple of overs. Perry Waldron (2/12) was amongst the wickets early while Galston-Glenorie teed off at 9 overs they were 2/91. Enter Mr Ian “Easy game” Williams (2/9) who got a clean bowled and a caught behind after not playing the game in over 20 years. Quote: “This game is easy” with a cheeky grin…..While the average 12 year old could bowl faster, his practice in the nets last week had him bowl a good line which brought about his success. Congrats Ian your first wickets for WPHCCC and to Zac Morris his first seniors catch.

Dylan Bish (2/9) was next amongst with catches to Ben Waldron and Steve Quanborough had GG reeling at 6/112 after 14. Quan (1/7) picked up the 7th wicket with a good catch to Sullivan O’Brien for his first seniors catch while Siby Joseph (2/14) showed what he could do with the ball. His 2nd over he bowled 2 inswinging deliveries clean bowling the batsmen and then had the returning retired batsman on strike for his hatrick ball. With 2 slips and some close in fieldsman we were ready but Siby may not have been as alert. A straight delivery was cannoned back to him for a caught and bowled chance and went in and out of his right hand,…at least there was no one else to blame!
Pratah (1/8) finished the game off bowling the main bat to finish the innings.

Was a fun way to start with everyone contributing to the victory. Next week a reshuffle to give a few others a bat…

Gold (D2 Grade) 5/79 lost to Hornsby 3/168 – the first game of the season confirmed what we already knew. That is, we are fairly rusty with a number of players not having played for over 10 years. However, the weather was fine and the opposition good sportsmen. Hornsby bowling was very good with consistent line and length including both spin and pace.

Our best figures were 2 wickets for 6 runs off 2 overs from Mike Kinchington including 1 maiden. There was one stumping. Simon Friend opened the batting with Luke Christensen. Best with the bat for us was Luke Christensen 20 and Shabih Ul Alam with 29.

A big thank-you to our juniors ( Parin, Asees, Agri, Nick) who were appreciated greatly. Michael Clipshaw fielded very well in his first outing. Nick Clegg performed admirably as keeper. We need to improve our line and length in bowling and obtain more consistency but that will come as we play more matches. A good start to blow away the cobwebs.