Match Reports

Round 9 (1-Dayer)

A1 Grade

WPHC (Cam #25) 175 defeated Hornsby Green tba

Welcome to Parklands, the world’s most boring ground, for this much anticipated clash between WPHCCC and Hornsby Brown.

I can sense the dilation in your pupils as you read this, and yes I am shocked as you. We were actually playing cricket. Fortunately this week, the covers with the holes covered up with duct tape were not required.

Captain Krang was a notable absentee from our new warmup routine. He was pointing his fingers and doing the twist at a Saturday morning Wiggles concert. He pleaded with Lichaa to win the toss and bowl, he wanted to arrive later and open the batting. Lichaaa won the toss. He batted.

Gunny and Wu opened the batting. They both got starts and looked good but were not able to convert. Wu is lucky he has a strong personal relationship with the captain, he is incredibly close to Krang. Preeds and Billy joined each other at the crease.

Billy didn’t have an average coming into this game, he has swatted away the persistent rumours on his sexuality to leverage his new flame into runs. And lots of runs. This was a man with confidence. The new flame is female. Preeds on the other hand, was a man who was in a rebuild phase. His focus was to not leave any balls pitched in line and going on to hit the stumps

Preeds crept into the nervous double digits and began to build his innings from the ground up. He was only playing this game because he lied about sickness to get out an important baby shower family event. But that blatant disregard for his nearest and dearest was proving dividends for him. 20 became 30. 30 became 40. He was inching closer to his first A grade 50.

Down the other end, Rome was burning. Billy, Assman, Harry and Belly all departed quickly leaving Preeds to shoulder the responsibility. Today was his day, he brought up his first 50 after 10 seasons in A Grade to strong applause from the crowd. That applause waned when he took his helmet off to celebrate. We can only imagine what Sav would have though, Sav doesn’t even raise his bat for a 50.

Preeds was joined at the close of the innings by Tom Lav Hando, who put on a demolition with a quick fire 45. No one hits it cleaner, I especially loved the baseball lag in his hitting down the ground. We made 175.

The bowling was poor to begin with, Lichaa especially was belted and Jack bowled 17/18 balls down the leg side. But we were saved by Harry Hando, Meiks, Krang and surprise surprise – Jackson Preedy. He completed his man of the match performance with two wix. It’s his best day of cricket ever. Special mention to the great fielding from Tom and Mao, we were back to our brilliant best in the field. It must be the new warmup…..

A2 Grade

WPHC Blue (Birdcage) Vs Castle Hill RSL

A very warm welcome to all loyal and faithful A2 Blue Match reports readers:

Why do we play cricket? No seriously why do we genuinely play cricket because days like this make a swift and early retirement from cricket extremely attractive.

Fred Caterson 2 awaited us and what we casted our eyes on was a thick and slow outfield that would give Royal Randwick a serious run for its money. Heavy 9.

Returning skipper Birdcage lost yet another toss for the Blues and it was time to wack on the pads and have a bat first. (P.S we haven’t won a toss in the first 9 rounds of the season).

The Blues walked out to the middle and continued their historic and game changing strategy of losing wickets and not scoring a lot of runs.

The Blues fought and battled against some good and then extremely questionable “bowling” (one bloke throws it) Castle Hill left us with the task of ticking over the scoreboard ball by ball and giving us all hope of something special but wickets tumbled and hearts crumbled and the blues were back to there collapsing best.

Small cameos from Cougar Lover Hira, Brent “Long***k” Larkham, Lakshan “Spread” Perera and Dean “Turns Blind” Carlin managed to get the mighty blues to a competitive and hard fought 87 runs.

With a full-compliment of bowlers and a thick outfield under the sweltering Caterson sun the Blues were ready to pile the pressure on and find a way to pull the rabbit out of the hat and claim another defiant victory.

What followed was much less then defiant with the Castle Hill batters able to chip away slowly at the mighty blues target and with a few missed opportunities not taken our defence of the total was draining away into the single digits.

We take this moment to pause and bring a special spotlight on our glorious and wonderful captain Ryan “Back to Germany” Loveridge (Birdcage is 0-2 this season and pressure is mounting, however he still has the full confidence of the WPHCCC A2 Blue Board)

Picture the scene now – Kyle “Sulieman Benn” Townsend is bowling a wonderful tight spell of bowling with the killer sunnies to boot, the batsmen takes a dirty old hack and the ball spat up into the air at 1km per hour with Birdcage standing under it, a simple and easy catch was to come along with a 3^rd wicket for KT and the WPHCCC Blues would have a chance…. Well what happened next was a disgusting drop too horrific and gruesome to describe.

This life altering incident drew a close to our chances for the day and shortly thereafter Castle Hill chased the small amount of runs left and claimed victory in a long and slow afternoon of cricket. Wickets to Riken “Pipes” Hira, Dean “Siraj” Carlin and Kyle “Sulieman Benn” Townsend were handy additions to the scoreboard but proved futile in the end and a loss was had.

Before we say goodbye a few important notes and shout outs in the A2 Blue World’:

• Our thoughts are with Shaan “Bloodclot” Bakshi at this time, a tragic incident in the nets has left him with a purple “groin” region and has rendered him unavailable to play the last 2 weeks
• An extra special shoutout to an un-named opponent today who in the views of all in the A2 Blue is a massive chucker and would give Murali a serious run for his money. NO BALL

Thank you all for reading and as the A2 Blue’s look forward to next week I shall leave you with a teaser on our opponents for next weekend…

Have all your Hazmat gear prepared, get your inoculations done and join us on our trip up the highway…..

Yep it’s that lot. Another famous battle awaits

WPHC Red (Todd) 118 lost to Berowra 7/120

Lachie finally took a catch, I guess 34^th time is the charm, more on this later

I’m going to start this match report by saying that whoever on our team walked through a corridor of ladders, whilst hammering in a mirror and opening six umbrellas simultaneously indoors needs to own up and sit out for the season.

After our first win of the season two weeks ago, our spirits were once again crushed with a washout and now a nail biting loss to Berowra.

After Captain Todd “I didn’t even call it” Hutchinson lost his 658^th consecutive toss we were sent in to bat. With many starts at the top of the order and a string of ordinary innings down the order, we posted 118, with our only score of note being senior Jamaican’s 37.

With a pretty small total to defend we knew we would have to be perfect to even have a chance of winning.

Once again tight opening spells from Ben and Ollie brought about an early wicket and set the tone. Jamaican junior and Todd continued this pressure, the latter picking up a wicket.

At drinks Berowra were 2-52

Game on.

Willy continued in tandem with the quicks to keep the pressure. Willy securing 2 wickets for the day.

Unfortunately throughout this period we had 5 costly dropped catches. One of which from Lachy ‘Melman’ Edwards. More in this very soon.

To close out with 3 overs left and 9 runs needed, Todd entrusted himself to take the bulk, supported at the other end by Ben. In the first ball of this pre-penultimate over Todd got the Berowra batsman driving on the up, straight into the safe hands of Ollie ‘Has he ever dropped one’ Makin.

Game on.

Two balls later the other Berowra bat drives again on the up towards the often-times useless hands of Lachy Edwards.

Before you find out the outcome of this ball, let me take you on a journey.

You see earlier in the match Lachy had a ball smoked straight to him at square leg which he uncharacteristically put down (I don’t know how to convey sarcasm in writing but just know that was it). The ball cannoned into his wrist which he clutched as he writhed around in pain on the ground, unfortunately no yellow card was awarded. Thoughts raced through my mind. Had he broken it again? Could he come back from such a career threatening injury? How would his willow fare with more doctor prescribed re-gripping? Word on the street was that it was quite worn out from previous abuse.

He scampered off the field. Only returning a few overs before this. The ball before, Connor had asked him: “Is your hand alright? Do you want to switch positions?” (Cricket chat is pretty suspect without context) But what he did next answered this question for once and for all.

Lachy Edwards caught the ball. For once he remembered he doesn’t play volleyball and actually kept the rock in his hands.

Two in the over. Game on

Until it wasn’t and we lost. The catches seemed to be too costly and our total too low.

Tune in next week to see if Lachy can back up his outstanding performance.

B1 Grade

WPHC Blue (Shomik) 119 lost to Kissing Point 6/119

It was a tough day for the boys this week. We warmly welcomed Cam and Ben to the side with some key players out of action. It was a boiling day, and we decided to bat first.

There are few runs to speak of, with fatigue getting the better of our top order. Amit scored 11, and Patrick scored 20, made a great partnership and carried us toward 117, a sub-par total for Greenway. However, we had enough for our bowlers to have a crack.

All the bowlers took wickets at crucial intervals, having them 5-77 at one stage. But the sheer weight of overs and lack of runs meant that small misfields and quick running between the wickets meant we could not add any discernible pressure.

Not having Vaibhav and Shomik this week was disappointing, but Harsh, Sagnik and Mohsin showed outstanding leadership in Shomik’s absence.

I can see that all the boys are putting in great effort, and hopefully, we can come away with a significant victory next week against Berowra.

WPHC Red (Warren) 136 lost to St Ives-Wahroonga 166

After a couple weeks of tough losses and poor form we arrived at Hassel Park to hopefully gain a crucial win heading into the Christmas break. Unfortunately today’s events proved otherwise.

With half of team missing through various reasons (again), our new team looked to bring back the feeling that cricket is a good sport and our Saturday afternoons aren’t wasted. However, cricket is still a shit sport and our Saturday afternoon was wasted.

Captain Dickhead Warren “trigger finger” Schwartzel won the toss and elected to field. Good choice considering we aren’t able to defend a total to save our lives.

With our bowling innings, most bowlers toiled away with good lines and lengths. This usually brings good fortune with the help of your teammates.

However today we decided that we would embrace our inner Nick “Buckets” Duck and have feet for hands. With a number of misfields and dropped catches, St Ives managed to reach a decent score of 166.

Shoutout to Rob “Ferrari” Knapman, Dan “Matt” Schwartzel and Big Daddy Vink who took a handful of wickets.

Heading into our batting innings, Ray “Way Way” Khamis wanted to remind us that he needed to be left by 6 or whenever the sun was at a certain point in the sky. Thankfully due to his run of form for the past 6 years, this was not in any danger.

Ray came and went after smashing one caught behind. Probably the best he’s hit a ball all season. Ollie who filled in showed that he is burgling in C1s with a handy 50odd. The clubs 11122237^th in the clubs history (Source Ross Anderson). Ollie and Bishy began a handy 69 run partnership. Nice. This partnership was unfortunately not enough to get us across the line. Losing by around 30 runs.

In other news:

• Ray had to leave early to go on a date to the circus. Huge news.
• Brent Larkham’s bucks was a success and the wedding is still on.
• Adam is colourblind
• Cricket sucks.

C1 Grade

WPHC (Indranil) Vs BYE

Our next game is a 1-Dayer Vs Sydney Lions @ Caddies Creek on 21 December 2024

C2 Grade

WPHC Blue (Hiresh) 85 lost to Beecroft 9/148

It was a sunny day as Beecroft faced off against WPH in an exciting cricket match.

WPH won the toss and elected to bowl first, setting the tone for the game. Rey and Sparsh opened the bowling with strong spells, with Rey making an immediate impact by taking two handy wickets. Ryan bowled well and was unlucky not to claim a wicket, while Arjan delivered an impressive performance, finishing with figures of 2-23.

Shanks continued his reliable form, picking up 3-21, while Ratul and Meet chipped in with a wicket each. Sid, on bowling debut, bowled a promising spell, showing good potential for WPH.

When it came to batting, Sparsh and Hiresh got WPH off to a solid start, forming a strong opening partnership and taking the score to 70 without loss. However, the match turned quickly after the first breakthrough. WPH collapsed dramatically, losing the next 10 wickets for just 20 runs. The Beecroft bowlers capitalised on the momentum shift, and WPH fell well short of their target, losing the match convincingly.

Despite the loss, it was a commendable effort from WPH, who were missing 6 of their regular players.

Special thanks to those who filled in and gave their best on the day.

There’s plenty to build on, and the team will be eager to bounce back stronger in the next game

WPHC Red (Aniket) 176 lost to St Ives-Wahroonga 188

We were dealt a tough hand right before the game when we lost a key all-rounder due to injury. As a result, we only had enough bowlers to bowl 35 overs, meaning everyone had to step up and perform to the best of their abilities.

We lost the toss and were put into the field, which was the opposite of what I would have preferred. However, we started well, bowling tight lines, though we struggled to pick up wickets early on. By the 15th over, we hadn’t taken a single wicket, but we managed to keep St. Ives to just 66 runs by the drinks break. After the break, the heat took its toll on us, and we lost our line and length. St. Ives capitalised on the opportunity and scored 122 runs in just 17 overs, setting us a challenging target of 188 to chase.

Despite the struggles, Sarthak (a fill-in player) made a significant contribution with the ball, taking 2 wickets with his sharp bowling and quick thinking.

When it came to batting, Mohan and Saurabh opened for us.

While Mohan was a bit hesitant about opening, he decided to give it a go due to his recent form. Unfortunately, we lost Saurabh early in the 6^th over. Mohan, however, continued to anchor our innings, and to his credit, he scored his first century of the season 102 and our 548^th century for the Club.. By the drinks break, we were only 7 runs behind St. Ives.

Things looked promising, but we kept loosing wickets from the other end. None of us were able to support Mohan, and in the end, we fell short by just 12 runs.

It was disappointing to not convert Mohan’s brilliant performance into a win, but the team is determined to learn from today’s game and focus on securing a victory in the next one.

C3 Grade

WPHC (Mick) 2/217 defeated Hornsby

A great day for the lads against Hornsby.

Capt. Mick won the toss and elected to bat knowing our top order would take a treat to the conditions.

Harry W and Nick D opened up playing superbly to the first break at 12 overs to get us to 0-50. Harry played some cracking cover drives and pulls to make his way to 35 with Nick just knocking it around letting Harry take the strike.

Soon after the drinks break Nick was dismissed on 17 and Hornsby’s hopes were high.

In comes ‘Big D’, Dan F to the crease who batted superbly with Harry killing all of their energy. He put his foot on the accelerator smashing balls to all ends of the park with Harry turning the strike over. Harry battling like a wounded soldier hobbled his way to 50 before retiring hurt.

Kristian E was next in who batted with Dan to get the 50. Dan was on fire hitting balls over cover, square leg, with, may I add many textbook drives, but his most used shot, over wide mid-on. One from the crowd said, “this guy has ran a half marathon” in regard to the fielder at Mid On chasing leather off Dan’s bat. This partnership brought us to drinks with the score of 1-146.

After drinks, Dan hit a few more bombs before being caught at mid-wicket. Jimmy W then walked to the crease to join Kristian and this partnership brought us to end of Innings. Kristian was playing a mix of superb textbook shots and big shots and he got himself to 42*. Jimmy got lucky early in his innings but bounced back with hitting a quick 20 cameo.

At the change of innings we ended up with 2-217. We were quite confident that we could get the job done, although we knew that anything can happen in a game of cricket.

Lennox S and Will P started our bowling off keeping it tight with countless plays and misses. The building of pressure brought Dan into play smashing the stumps over for our first wicket, run-out. Dom and James were next bowling who again kept it very tight and bowled majority at the stumps which brought the next 3 wickets.

With a very good start having Hornsby 4-52, in came Will D who is one of our strike bowlers. Today wasn’t his day which happens as a leg spinner with one particular batter targeting him.

He was very unlucky with a couple of dropped catches but that’s cricket. Jimmy was next to bowl hitting the line and length with a bit of swing and seam either way. He ended up picking up 4 wickets.

Then the number 10 (their last batter) came in and we put the big quicks on to bowl. Lennox and Dan bowler extremely well although not taking a wicket for a while until Dan bowled a seed to catch the outside edge caught behind.

A good game all round for the lads and we were very happy with the result winning by 83 runs.

Stand out performances:

• Harry W. 50 no
• Dan F. 72
• Kristian E. 42 no
• Jimmy W. 4-8
• Dom R. 2-16

C4 Grade

WPHC Red (Ross S) 6/151 lost to Glenorie4/152

A hot day at Les Shore, with a must win game to keep us in touch with the top 4, playing Galston just a few points in front of us.

Ross won the toss and had no hesitation batting.. Huge boundaries, so runs very hard to come by. A loss of an early wicket, ome good bowling and our inability to turn over the strike was disappointing. At the 18 over drinks break 1/57.

We really needed some urgency in our batting, but unfortunately we lost two wickets in the first 2 overs after drinks, Sandeep for a patient 34 and Mridal 28. With Gihan and Alex at the crease, our run rate started to move. Some lusty hitting from Gihan, and good running from Alex, taking us to the 30 over mark, where Alex went for 11. 4/123. Muthindra and Gihan then batted urgently , finally Gihan dismissed in the 34^th over for 47. A couple of lusty hits from Muthindra and Henry saw us get to 151/6 at close.

We were very confident we could defend this. Ram and Anand as usual kept things tight and bowled without luck. First change , Mridal catching the edge and caught by Ross. Galston 1/28 off 10. Some risky running between wickets brought about a second wicket just before drinks. A great stop and return by Henry to Ross…Galston 2/57 at the break.

Now readers I feel like I’m writing the same match report as has been done for 2 of our games already this year as we have lost in either the 2^nd last or last over batting first. I could have copied and pasted from a previous report…….never the less after the break our bowling intensity dropped away.

So many balls bowled at leg stump or down leg, picked off. We could not bowl a consistent line, and when the ball did go in the air we put down chances. ottom line we did not deserve to win with our efforts today after drinks so frustrating and disappointing as we are a better team than today.

Two after drinks highlights though…Congrats to Paul though taking a wicket in his first over of seniors bowling. Well caught by Muthindra at point, and Ram bowling a ripping inswinger to take out middle stump off their best batter.

Galston passed us in the 33^rd over…

Wickets to Ram 1/23(6), 1/25(7), Paul 1/15(3).

WPHC Blue (Rob) Vs BYE

Our next game is against Thornleigh at Campbell Park on 21 December 2024

WPHC White (Agniva) 3/247 defeated Sydney Lions 206

After what would have even given the Goldman Sachs trading floor a run for money, the week leading up to Round 9 shows how special the Club is.

With skippers selflessly helping their counterparts across different grades, all the teams finally had a playing squad, special thanks to Indranil and Rob for plugging the gaps wherever possible and the juniors for stepping up across grades.

Anyway, after 2 weeks of zero cricket for the Whites, what better place to get back to it than Northholm where the ground felt like it has just has a fresh layer of grass carpeted on it. Agni, keeping the momentum alive lost the toss again for the 9^th consecutive game this season (if you count the T20’s) but to our luck, the opposition put us in to bat (exactly what we were hoping to do anyway). What eventuated next was nothing short of a dream.

Indranil and Arun after a watchful first over absolutely annihilated the opposition attack with some power hitting and we were 0-80 after 10 overs in no time.

When Indranil fell for a well-made 53, Arun took charge with Anubhav at the other end and both the batters demolished the opposition attack with a few 18-20 run overs, something we don’t really see in park cricket.

Arun fell for a well-earned 71 and then it was up to Anubhav to take us towards the close of innings. Inspite of copping a bad blow on the wrist from a throw, Anubhav carried on like a workhorse and ended up with 84 not out and with our score at 247, we knew we had a real good chance at this! It was amazing to see the top order take charge which hasn’t been the case for most of this season.

With a solid score behind them, our bowlers needed to keep things simple – target the top of off. The first breakthrough came from Mridul via a brilliant caught behind from Suf however the opposition had other plans at throwing the kitchen sink at every delivery that came their way. This coupled with some luck going their way started to make us nervous as they were cruising along. The first change saw Jacques come in and slow things down and voila!

We had our second scalp in no time. From then on, Pritam, Vinod and Jacques bowled solid lines with Vinod bowling a dream spell by picking up 3-15 of his 7. Sydney Lions however never gave up and kept going for shots up until the last few overs till Suf & Sayan cleaned up the tail.

A huge thanks to Indranil (C1), Jacques (D1) & Dinesh (U16) for helping us put forward a squad for this round with the 6 key players of the team missing in action. This win helped set the momentum for the last rounds in the new year while we go on our extended 4 week break thanks to a BYE in R10.

Happy Holidays everyone and good luck to those playing next week.

D1 Grade

WPHC Red (Diggers) 5/158 defeated Glenorie

After the 2-day wash out against Hornsby, we were keen to get back on the winner’s list against Glenorie at Campbell Park, especially with Glenorie only a couple of positions ahead of us on the table.

We arrived at Campbell Park in 30+ degree heat and luckily Diggers won the toss and elected to bat.

Today marked a special day for the Club as we were fortunate to have three Club life members playing for us, Ross Anderson, Peter Lees and Steve ‘Buzz’ Burrows joining the team. We were also fortunate to have a fourth Club life member and club legend, Steve ‘Quan’ Quanborough, who came down and helped field for us. I understand this is the first time four Club life members have played together in the same team.

Diggers (12) and Cliff (54) opened the batting and got us off to a great start before Diggers fell just before the drinks break.

Tim (50*) joined Cliff and built a good partnership before Cliff fell.

Time carried his bat for the rest of the innings and scored his maiden 50* in fantastic fashion – unfortunately this is Tim’s last match for the season as he has an amazing opportunity to study overseas in the USA. All the best Tim!

Grant (17), Peter (an unlucky duck), Nandit (9) and Buzz (4*) all combined with Tim and helped post a good score of 5/158 although we did have some concerns the score may have been slightly below par on the fast Campbell Park outfield, but we were confident that our bowling attack could restrict the runs.

Manraj (3/15) bowled another sensational spell and opened the bowling with Nandit (1/22), both keeping the scoring low. Tight bowling followed from Disco (1/22) and Buzz (0/29) and Glenorie were well behind the run rate deep into their innings. Some big hitting from one of the Glenorie players against Farjad (1/45) started to change the momentum, but Manraj took a great caught & bowled to dismiss the big hitter.

Our fielding was much improved on previous games with catches being taken and players diving to stop the ball, especially fill-in player Quan. Diggers was great behind the stumps (although will probably be sore in the morning after being hit on the ankle from a delivery by Nandit).

Overall a much improved performance from the team and back in the winner’s circle.

Thanks again to our four Club life members, especially Buzz and Quan who filled in.

Now back out to Northholm Grammar next week to keep the momentum going.

WPHC Blue (Nirav) 5/191 defeated Mt Colah 77

Our team posted a competitive total, led by a brilliant and unbeaten knock from Vikrant, who dominated the innings with 81 not out, including seven boundaries. His performance anchored the innings and ensured the team maintained a steady momentum throughout.

Ravi contributed a quick 8 runs, while Sahil provided additional support with 21 runs, including a boundary. Middle-order batter Rishikesh played an important stabilizing role, scoring 30 runs before being run out.

Late in the innings, Parin chipped in with a valuable 17 not out, hitting one boundary to push the team total further. Unfortunately, Kamran was dismissed for a duck, falling to a catch and bowl.

The innings ended with Zia scoring a rapid 30 runs, showcasing his power with two boundaries and a six. His innings gave the team a strong finish.

When we bowled, we took a quick couple of wickets and the other team was 5/70 at the drinks break. Soon after, we won the game, taking the remaining wickets for just 7 runs and Ravi getting his first fifer of the season (5/21).

Thanks much to Rob (C4 Blues cap) and James in helping out with 4 fill-in players for this game.

D2 Grade

WPHC (Roger) Vs Kenthurst-Upper Hills

Scores and Match Report not available.