A1 Grade

WPHC 216 lost to ARL 8/221 – unfortunately today didn’t go our way. We started the day with Riley ‘Bonga’ Miedler snaring an early wicket. From there, nothing went our way. ARL had an absolute road to play on and used it to their advantage, with one of their batsmen cashing in and scoring a ton. Highlights were few and far between, however Sol Tomlinson took 2 important wickets and Riley Miedler took an impressive 5. It’s a disappointing loss for the lads, seeing as though this is only the third time in 5 seasons that a team has scored 200 + against us. I’m sure the boys will bounce back from this loss and continue the run towards the finals.

A2 Grade

WPHC 238 defeated Kenthurst Upper Hills 150 – after making a competitive score Week 1, hot and steamy conditions met us to start Week 2. Some tight early bowling made scoring difficult, but 3 wickets prior to drinks gave us the upper edge. The second session saw us gain total control of the match, taking 4 more wickets, with the job being completed shortly after tea.

It was a brilliant team effort with the ball, with wickets shared. Our bowlers bowled a fuller length, and were rewarded accordingly. Andy ‘Fernie’ Meikle led our attack, bamboozling the batsmen to take 3/51. Wickets were also taken by Luke ‘Zog’ Herzog (2/16), Michael ‘Richie’ Richards (2/41), Simon ‘Snumpty’ Smyth (1/7) and Rowan ‘Keats’ Keating (1/19). In the field, catches were taken by Alex ‘Hooch’ Turner (2), Tisveer ‘Tis’ Mistry and Zog.

Special mention to Matt ‘Dazza’ Joliffe for helping us out in the field, and to Allan ‘Raffa’ Raffel, who could not hide his excitement out on the ground.

B1 Grade

WPHC 2/193 defeated Kenthurst Upper Hills 189 – we continued what we started last week chasing 189 on a low-bouncing Glenhaven Reserve. Simply, we never looked like struggling all day – except for Volc who was constantly complaining and saying he would “rather die then go back out there”.

We ended up 2/193, with Costo (88*) and Volc (73) scoring the majority of the runs with Fids (14*) and Justib Edwards (11) getting the only other chances at batting. This win solidified us at the top of the table and we can hopefully continue this momentum (with a current 3 game win streak) all the way until Christmas where we are able to position ourselves as Finals contenders.

B2 Grade

WPHC 227 defeated SKLPS 137 – at Greenway Park we resumed at 7/199 looking for a few quick runs to put us in a dominant position. Peter Flook was out for 38, Ravin Wijesuriya 1 and Prats Datar 10. Chris Williamson remained not out on 93 carrying his bat for the full 81.1 overs of our innings.

When it came our turn to bowl Peter Flook and Prats opened the bowling and bowled beautifully but couldn’t snag a wicket. The change of bowling did the trick with Anushka De Silva striking in his first over. We went to the drinks break with SKLPS 1/26. After drinks Rick Turner removed the other opener and we were finally getting some reward for our good bowling.

The change of bowling did the trick again with Ben Meikle getting a wicket in his first over and Willy in his second over. We went to tea and SKLPS were 4/56 off 31 overs – we were on top. Ben Meikle removed the SKLPS captain with the first ball after tea (a very valuable wicket to get). A bowling change again brought more wickets with Ravin Wijesuriya getting 2 wickets in his first over and Michael Gunn in his second.

We kept the pressure on and at the 5pm drinks SKLPS were 9/133 off 52 overs. Another bowling change and we got the final wicket – SKLPS all out for 137 – a very solid win. Best of the bowlers Ravin Wijesuriya 2/14, Anushka De Silva 2/23, Chris Williamson 2/27, Ben Meikle 2/29, Michael Gunn 1/8 and Rick Turner 1/12. Today we shared the wickets around and as a team bowled and fielded very well. We are now 4 from 4 and are playing solid cricket. Bring on the next round!

C1 Grade

WPHC 6 (dec) /276 defeated Lankan Islanders 139 – the boys had to dig a lot deeper than the score suggests with this win. We declared at our overnight score and hoped we wouldn’t be out in the heat of Gilroy College for long – but the Lankan batsmen had other ideas. The pace bowlers all bowled exceptionally, but the wickets were sparse in the first session. Ray Khamis managed to conjure a run out and wickets to Mat Marsden (1/12) and Rob Hitchcock (2/30) saw us go into tea with Lankans 3/88 – almost an identical score to our own tea score on day 1.

We had to wait until the 44th over to take our 4th wicket, and from there we felt we had won the arm wrestle. The Lankans were now left to bat for a draw, which allowed us to set attacking fields and rotate the bowlers in short spells. Ben O’Meara (1/29) and Rahul Mucherla (1/16) bowled superbly, but we took a gamble when the final 20 overs started and gave Ray Khamis a trundle (actually we were sick of him telling us he could bowl & had to see it for ourselves).

Well, after an uneventful first over, he managed to clean up the tail in his next 2 overs, and finished with the awesome figures of 3/1 in 2.5 overs. You’ve never seen the big fella so happy. A special thanks to Brett Hawkins who fielded for us for the day after we were a player short. Much appreciated.

C2 Grade

WPHC Blue 9 (dec) /313 lost to St Ives 7/323 – heading into the field with a good score to defend we were punished early by some big hitting from one opposition opener who scored 56 out of 63 in the first ten overs before a change of bowling brought about 2 wickets in 2 balls from Raghu (2/68) to put us back in the game.

Unfortunately they continued to build partnerships and despite a couple of breakthroughs from Matt Rashleigh (2/51) and Nikki O’Meara (1/53) along with a stunning direct throw run out from Rash, St Ives just sapped the strength out of us on a sweltering day in the field to pass our score 7 down. Wortho picked up a late wicket (1/25), but despite strong efforts from all the bowlers, they were just too strong for us today.

Lots of positives, but we need to keep working hard in this grade to ensure our good efforts are rewarded with wins – on to next round.

WPHC Red 4 (dec) /343 defeated Kenthurst Upper Hills 217 & 2/87 – the opposition resumed at 5/75 at the start of day’s play. The tone for the day was set with a catch taken in the first over from a No Ball! We pushed.

Hard to take early wickets, but the Kenthurst batsmen dug in. Nathaniel Chidgey kept up his form from week 1, getting the breakthrough In the 8th over. Nathaniel toiled hard to finish with 4/53 from 17 overs. Rob Knapman took 3/32 from his 9 overs. Our fielding was hot and cold all day. Many catches went to ground, but some great catches were taken. Brent Larkham took a classic catch at deep mid-wicket, plucking the ball out of the sky to save a 6! Ian Paterson also took a sharp catch at 2nd slip to finish off the innings.

We went back into the field after tea for the start of the opposition’s 2nd innings. We threw everything at them, but Kenthursts resilience and the humidity sapped the energy out of our quicks. At 2/87 at 5pm, we called it quits. In tough conditions, all the boys really dug in. First innings points now leave us in a great position on the competition ladder.

C3 Grade

WPHC 218 defeated Kenthurst Upper Hills 194 – we needed to bat on today to get as many with the last pair in the middle. Cameron Bish and Dean Carlin, stuck to the task very well and managed to take day1 score from 9/179 to 218 all out. Dean got 21 and Cameron was 37* which was highest individual score in the team after Ian Digby’s 35 last week.

Kenthust had about 65 overs to get 218. Their opening batsmen played very solidily and were 0/76 at tea break. After this we had our main spinner in Perry Waldron start bowling. Perry got the very first breakthrough into 29th over of the team innings and then had another wicket in the same over. These were the openings we needed to start putting pressure on the opposition. And pressure soon started to show. Gautam got important breakthrough in removing other opening batsman.

Perry got a break/sometime in the shade and was ready to roll again. And he kept running through the opposition batsmen. There were couple of stumpings affected by Indranil in addition to catch behind stumps.

At one stage Kenthurst were 5/142 and match in balance. Ben Waldron joined his Dad from the other end and soon had two important wickets. There was small partnership which was again broken by Perry with score at 177. We needed 4 wickets in the 13 overs left to play and had only 41 runs to defend. Constant pressure and good bowling from Perry got us 3 more wickets and Zac took last wicket to get us a very hard earned win on a very hot day in the field. Perry finished with figures of 6/37, Ben with 2/25 and one wicket each to Gautam and Zac. Some good catching and chatter in the field made it a team effort to get us home in the end.

D1 Grade

WPHC 322 defeated St Ives 243 – St Ives started the day at 0/20. We were unlucky before the first drinks break with what we thought was a clear caught behind but apart from that St Ives batted well and were 0/74.

The batsmen with the life then took the opportunity to plunder some runs and had another new life but after 23 overs it was fill-in and seniors debutant Xander Vink (1/19 off 4 overs) from U/15s who took out his leg stump to get us amongst it. Congrats first seniors wicket young man.

Pratah Sinnetamby (1/7 off 4) removed the 1st drop batsman with a clean bowled. St Ives 2/121 at tea.

After tea St Ives took off with a couple of chances going down and some other calls not swinging our way. Rhys Flynn (1 wicket) finally got one after many missed opportunities removed the opening batsman who batted 57 overs. St Ives 3 for 194 with 20 overs to bowl at drinks.

St Ives were 2 short in batting but now it came down to a T20 situation with them needing 129 runs off 20 overs with in essence 5 wickets in hand. Some solid and tight bowling after the drinks break brought wickets with first Dan Waters (3/8 off 8 overs) getting a wicket with a catch to captain Steve at mid off then Cody Waters (1/19 off 3) getting his first seniors wicket for WPHCCC with a catch to Pav Kozyrev. Dan then opened the game up for us finished his next 2 overs with 2 more clean and bowled and we then only needed 1 more. Steve Quanborough (1/12 off 6.5 overs) came on for 1 over and Pratah Sinnetamby stumped the batsmen with a flighted ball. We got the win with 8.1 overs to spare.

A good game with a 2 Vs 3 battle, the lack of 2 batsman really gave us a chance at the death but our bowling was much improved against a quality team. 75.5 overs in an innings was a lot to bowl and all 11 players got a trundle in the hot day conditions. We are looking forward to welcoming our new players from the shuffle between C3 and D1s and wish our promoted players all the very best.

D2 Grade

WPHC 150 lost to St Ives 7 (dec) /281 – update to come.