A1 Grade

WPHC 9/137 defeated St Ives 118 – losing the toss we were sent into bat on a rock hard Kenthurst wicket. Openers Philthy Phil and Yoyo Mathias got us off to a solid start before Philthy got cleaned up on 18. Yoyo continued to hold up one end whilst a few wickets fell at the other end. He was eventually dismissed for a solid 20. We struggled to maintain strong batting partnerships throughout the innings as wickets fell at a constant rate.

Fat Fathias Connell played a great knock of 33 in the middle order and Skip for the day, Jobbo played a classy innings at no.8 of 29 not out. We ended up on 137 after the 40 overs, which was under par but we thought with our bowling attack would be enough.

The innings could not have started any better with Jobbo finding the edge of their opening batsmen. Yoyo took a cracking catch in second slip. Bonga Miedler also took a wicket in his first over to have St Ives on the back foot early. From then they never looked like winning the game. Our bowlers were too good for their batsmen as they fell 20 runs short. Buckets Scoular was the pick of the bowlers with 4/35. Buckets also had a drop catch on a hat trick ball. Bonga ended up with 3/17 wickets and 1 a piece to Jobbo, Patto (1/12 off 6) and Darshan. We didn’t play our best cricket today but we showed the fight that was required to get the points.

A2 Grade

WPHC 6/129 defeated SKLPS 127 – 3rd Vs 4th at Greenway Park, and Simon ‘Snumpty’ Smyth surprised the large crowd (his mum and the Richards family) by winning the toss. We decided to bowl. 4 wickets in the first 12 overs, and 5 at drinks put the opposition on the back foot, before a late flurry of wickets saw us bowl SKLPS out for 127 in the 37th over.

Our focus was our fielding, and it was extremely pleasing to see wickets created through fielding. Behind the stumps, Alex ‘Hooch’ Turner christened his new kits with 2 snares, while Luke ‘Gandis’ Herzog (2), Matheesha ‘Tux’ Gunaratne and Michael ‘Lichaaa’ Richards also took catches, with Andy ‘Fernie’ Meikle and Hooch combined for a brilliant run out to claim the last wicket.

With the ball, wickets were taken by Snumpty (3), Lichaa (2), Gandis (2) and Fernie (2), whilst Rowan ’23’ Keating bowled a restricting spell through the middle overs, and Dan ‘Fish’ Costigan looked dangerous with his offies. Special mention to Tux and Anuj ‘Nuja’ Dhorajiwala for their brilliant work in the field.

Our turn to bat, and even though we were chasing a modest target, the SKLPS bowlers, especially their spinners, bowled tightly to ring fields, to make scoring difficult. Our top 4 in Lichaaa (16), Allan ‘Raffa’ Raffel (19), Tux (22) and Alex ‘Figjam’ Robertson (20) all got starts, but it was the partership from Nuja (14*) and Hooch (17*), that helped guide us home, as they both played smart shots and ran hard between the wickets, to see us home in the 39th over.

A massive win for us, which sees us consolidate 3rd spot. Congrats to Fernie, who today took his 50th wicket for our great Club.

B1 Grade

WPHC 4/163 defeated Glenorie 9/161 – losing the toss again we were sent to bowl on the fairly good Les Shore Reserve 1. The first key wicket was taken by Justin “Jane” Edwards, getting out Glenorie’s best bat Middleton in the process. From here we struggled to get another wicket until the 17th over where Calvin “McClavin” Breytenbach struck 2 wickets in one over. Glenorie finished their 40 overs with 9/162, with Calvin finishing with 4/22, Justin finishing with 3/22, and Tis and our fill in Matty Joliffe getting one wicket each.

Michael “Volc” Banner and Josh Banner (ask our team in person for his nickname) opened and it was the first time they have ever batted together. Volc however, was quickly dismissed for 5, and Josh a short time later on 15. Ashane “A-Train” De Silva came in at 3 and never slowed down, and after being called a cheat through most of his innings (after not walking off what Glenorie were sure he was out), he punished them with a 92 in quick succession. Kyle “Krusty” Faber also supported but looked at his best with a quick-fire 42. Fids and Calvin finished off the innings with 10 overs to spare. How good was that win.

B2 Grade

WPHC 7/116 defeated ARL 113 – we turned up to a dry and lightning fast Dural Park and lost the toss again!! The ARL skipper had no hesitation in deciding to bat. A few overs later he may have been regretting that decision as ARL we on the end of a great opening bowling partnership between Bailey Miedler and Taki Manolelis and crashed to 5/16.

Bailey was bowling quick and with hostility and had the ARL batsmen jumping around. Taki was bowling with superb control swinging the ball both ways. ARL dug in and crept to the 20 over drinks break at 5/38. Our bowling was disciplined backed up by good fielding and we were keeping the scoring rate slow on a fast outfield. Dinuka Jayasuriya made the next breakthrough and we were into the ARL tail which was wrapped up by Dinuka, Anushka De Silva and Ben Meikle. ARL were all out for 113 off 35 overs. Best of our bowlers Taki 3/15 (8), Bailey 2/2 (6), Dinuka 2/23 (8), Ben 2/8 (3) and Anushka 1/10 (2).

By contrast our innings started in a blaze of glory with Aaron Carlini taking 16 off the first over of our innings. Our first wicket fell at 22 (Rohit Ninan nicking off). Other than Aaron who scored a bright 45 all our batsmen got starts but were out to loose shots. Wickets fell regularly but we were scoring at a fast rate.

At the 20 over drinks break we were 6/91 and in control of the game. We lost a wicket in the first over after drinks but Chris Williamson and Ben Meikle saw us over the line. We finished at 7/116 off 27.4 overs. Best of our bating Aaron Carlini 45, Dinuka Jayasuriya 16, Ben Meikle 15no and Chris Williamson 12no. That makes it a perfect 6 from 6 and we are playing with confidence. Let’s keep the momentum going.

C1 Grade

WPHC 7/189 defeated St Ives 133 – we finally won a toss and batted first, looking for redemption after a poor showing in the previous game at the end of the innings. Ray Khamis (27) along with Stanton Tam (49) got us off to a flyer putting on a quick 40 runs for the opening partnership. After Ray’s dismissal, Michael Gunn (49) joined Stanton and after a circumspect start, they took our score along to 118 in the 28th over before they were separated. Semonn Oleksyn (28) & Mat Marsden (24) also got amongst the runs to help us finish at 7/189, which was a total we were confident of defending.

Our turn in the field, and Rahul Mucherla (2/12) made an immediate impact removing both openers by the 7th over. Aaron Hawkins continued his excellent form taking 2/29 off 8 overs and Rob Hitchcock (1/22) also chipped in and we had the game as good as won with St Ives 5/57 at the halfway mark.

One Saints batsman attacked the bowling with gusto after the break, hitting our slower bowlers around a bit, but we kept taking wickets to finish the innings on 133 in the 36th over. Mat (2/24) & Eric Junkkari (2/10) were the other wicket takers.

This was a good team effort with lots of contributions that consolidates our spot in the top 2.

C2 Grade

WPHC Blue 9/135 defeated Hornsby 134 – winning the toss (for a change) we sent Hornsby into bat. A good opening spell from Rashy and Buzz kept things tight as planned, and then with a bowling change, Dave Behlevanas struck first and continued to bowl a great spell to pick up 3/31. A couple of quick wickets to Buzz and some good fielding including a welcome return to form from Mr Dependable – Peter Lees (3 catches) and always dependable Joel B (2 ct & 1 st) kept the wickets falling at regular intervals. Wortho (1/21) and Adrian Chau (1/24) bowled well to grab a wicket each, with Buzz (5/11) finishing things off.

Our turn to bat and, well, as we all know, chasing a small target is never as easy as it appears! At 3/62 in the 23rd over we were still looking OK, but a slight procession of wickets in the middle order from guys who looked to be playing well kept the opposition in the game. The glue throughout was Riley B who played really well for his 43, upping the scoring rate to keep us in the hunt despite the fall of wickets.

However, finding ourselves at 8/86 we had some work to do! Enter Matt Rashy, who along with Adrian produced a game changing partnership of 32 for the 9th wicket with Rash smashing 29. With 3 overs to go, 17 to get and one wicket in hand, it was up to Adrian and Buzz who managed to manoeuvre the ball around for runs leaving us tied with 2 balls left! With a bit of luck, which for once went our way, Buzz popped the ball over the infield for the winning run with one ball to spare.

A great team effort where everybody put in, and nice to be back in the winners circle.

WPHC Red 79 lost to St Ives 166 – we lost the toss and were sent out into the field. The opposition came out swinging from ball one. Nathaniel Chidgey (0/22) bowled a great opening spell without any luck. The first change of bowler brought about the first wicket with Sandeep Darapuneni (3/16) sneaking through the gate to knock over the batsman. Sandeep then dismissed the other opener in almost identical fashion. Another couple of wickets saw the opposition fall to 4/69. The opposition dug in and built a partnership until the introduction of Stu Fiedler gave us the breakthrough. Stu continued to give the batsmen trouble, ripping through the last 6 batsmen to finish with 6/36.

We began our run chase confident we could give the total a real shake. Things didn’t get off to a great start with a run out in the 4th over. Joel Herzog (24) played himself in well, before also being run out. From there things continued down-hill to see us all out for 79. Finishing with 4 run outs, we did ourselves no favours in chasing down the total!

Thoughts are with Sandeep who went off to hospital with a suspected broken wrist after a heavy fall in an attempted catch.

C3 Grade

WPHC 7/207 defeated St Ives 8/170 – we lost another toss and after much deliberations, St Ives team decided to field first. Change from 2 day format to 1 day format required some adjustments and Zac Turner/Indranil Mukherjee opening pair did that very well for us. After first 10 overs we were 0/40 and next 9 overs 50 more runs were added for the first wicket partnership.

We lost our first wicket after 20 overs with Indranil for a well compiled 32. Meanwhile Zac was timing ball well and had a six and 6 fours in his 58 when he was out, with team score on 103 at end of 23 overs. Next 10 overs we added 2/60 runs with Perry Waldron contributing 28 and Tarun Lath 24. Ramil De Silva, Cameron Bish, Gautam Ayyar, Rhys Flynn and Dean Carlin made sure in the end that we post a good total of 207 after our 40 overs.

In our bowling innings, Dean Carlin got us an early breakthrough. Then St Ives put up a good partnership till 14th over when Ben Waldron got the second breakthrough into the 14th over with score on 56. At drinks break game was in balance with St Ives on 2/84 which was just 6 runs short of our score at same stage. Perry with his magic spin tilted game in our favor in very next over getting two wickets (and a hat- trick chance). Other end Tarun started bowling and had a good bowling partnership with Perry. Between both of them, they took 6/50 in 13 overs after drinks break. With 82 runs required in last 7 overs, we decided to try bowling options around the team in preparation for next matches. In the end St Ives finished with score on 8/170.

A good comprehensive win in the end, with important partnerships in batting and bowling. And a good switch as well from 2 day format to 1 day games!

D1 Grade

WPHC 7/227 lost to Kissing Point 6/229 – match report will be updated once received.

 

D2 Grade

WPHC 88 lost to Kissing Point 189 – we lost the toss and Kissing Point elected to bat in this one day match. We started well and after 30 overs Kissing Point were 4 for 109. However, they had one batter who was dropped on 14 and went on to score 86 runs. Point hit 80 runs off the last 10 overs to reach 189 runs. Ben Kinchington took 2 for 26 off 8 overs and Siby Joseph took 2 for 31 runs off 8 overs. Dinal Silva took 1 wicket for 19 runs off 8 overs as well and there was one run-out.

We then began our batting with Dinal Silva top scoring with 22 runs. Our newest recruit John Rose hit 28 runs but was subject to a non-rating limitation of 25 runs. This was a fine effort by John. We were all out for 88 runs in the 32nd over. This team is a work in progress because most of the players are new and have not played for a large number of years. But we can see progress especially in the fielding and bowling. We were four players short this week and a big thank you to 10 year old Ricky Clipsham for his fantastic fielding today. It was much appreciated.