T20 Competition
The T20 Competition match reports for Round follow:

1st Grade (A1 Grade) 8/129 defeated Kenthurst 126 – Match 2 and we needed to win and win well, to see our spot in the semis. Simon ‘Snumpty’ Smyth did the unthinkable, and won the toss, sending Kenthurst in.

Wickets fell at regular intervals, with good bowling and fielding restricting Kenthurst to 126 all out – exactly what we needed for our quotient. Wickets were shared, with Rowan ‘Keats’ Keating leading the way with 3, and Josh ‘Yoyo’ Mathias bowling a superb spell, taking 2 well deserved poles. Luke ‘Zog’ Herzog, Allan ‘Raffa’ Raffel, Michael ‘Mobbo’ Robertson and Snumpty took 1 each, with Nick ‘Maxim’ Bennett taking the second wicket through a direct hit run out. Fielding wise, catches were taken by Snumpty (2), Zog, Maxim, Phil ‘Philthy’ Wurth, Lachie ‘Spacey’ Vile, Yoyo and Alex ‘Figgie’ Robertson, while Alex ‘Fathead’ Connell dashed around the field faster than Warnie on a Tinder lead.

Chasing a modest target in the conditions, Spacey and Maxim got off to a quick start, reaching and clearing the boundary with ease. Throughout our innings we were cruising, but losing quick wickets near victory wasn’t ideal. Spacey whacked 41, with Mobbo blasting 28, Figgie chipping in with 16, and Philthy seeing us home at the end. A solid win, which hopefully sees us in the semis. Bring it on!

2nd Grade
Blue (B1 Grade) 8/88 defeated St Ives 8/84 – St Ives won the toss, had a bat and runs were consistently hard to find with all of our bowlers and fielders keeping the opposition to minimum runs. Their final score was 8/84, with the ‘Bully’ Tis Mistry being the star with the ball at 3/6 off 3 overs. All other bowlers performed with a returning Ashane De Silva bowling pace and getting 2-17, Dan Costigan (2/6 off 4) and Andy Meikle (1/10 off 2) being the other wicket takers.

Our turn to bat and we played steady, as we only needed just over 4 an over to win the match. We had the match won after Tim Leyshon got the final runs (22*), with Michael Richards (19) and Daniel Fiedler (18) also contributing. We finished at 8/88 and with 2 wins under our belt we’ve secured a position in the 2nd Grade semi-finals, which we will definately be competitive in.

Red (B2 Grade) 8/101 lost to Berowra 2/101 – we won the toss and elected to bat on a decent Greenway Oval. The story of our batting innings was that we didn’t find the boundary enough but credit must go to Berowra for bowling full and straight. Once again we started well with Dinesh De Silva and Anushka De Silva setting a starting platform. Through the middle overs we lost wickets regularly and therefore were unable to build a partnership of any size. After our allotted 20 overs we finished on 8/101. Best of the batsmen Aaron Carlini 19, Patrick Phillips 16, Dinesh De Silva 13 and Anushka De Silva 13.

When our turn came to bowl we started solidly but were unable to generate any chances with some lusty swings seeing the ball just miss the stumps and the catches hit going nowhere near our set fielders. In frustration we then started to bowl a bit too short and that gave the Berowra batsman just what they needed to start applying scoreboard pressure with boundaries.

In the end Berowra got the runs finishing 2/103 off 14.4 overs. Best of the bowlers were Patrick Phillips 1/26, Chris Williamson 1/11 and Peter Flook 0/17. With the T20s out of the way we look forward to the season proper commencing next week.

3rd Grade
Blue (C1 Grade) 2/157 defeated Sydney Lions (Gold) 106 – winning the toss & batting, we decided that T20 is a young man’s game, so why not unleash 2 young superstars on the Lions – enter Josh Banner (16 yo) & Shivraj Rana (15 yo). They found the Lions bowling very much to their liking. No doubt Josh gave Shiv plenty of advice after dispatching the same team for 107* in round 14 last season.

The Rep stars blasted the bowling to all parts of the ground before we put an end to the show after they put together 121 in the first 15 overs. Josh retired on 54 including 2 x 6’s and Shivraj on 63 with 10 x 4’s. It was a sight to behold, however we had to give some of the mortals a bat at some stage. We kept the momentum going and finished on 2/157, with nice cameos from Semonn Oleksyn (19*) & Mikey Fiedler (11*).

With a formidable total to defend we were confident we could do the job, but Lions started well. After 7 overs they were 0/56 and very much on target. However the introduction of spin saw the game turn our way. Eric Junkkari made the first breakthrough, and from there wickets fell at a regular rate. The next 9 overs saw us take 10 wickets for 44 runs, and end the day early. Stanton Tam picked up the best figures of 3/16 while Nathaniel Chidgey, Rohit Ninan, Shiv Rana and Michael Gunn all took a wicket each. The boys also won their first match, so can expect a semi final match in a couple of weeks.

Red (C2 Grade) 4/126 defeated Beecroft 7/120 – losing the toss for the 2nd time (Buzz has started off well in pursuit of the Club record again this year!) Beecroft batted first on a lightning fast Campbell Park. Despite some good bowling from Ben O’Meara and Dave Behlevanas, the opening pair were pulling away from us, but Ben broke through and this was quickly followed up by Kyle Townsend applying pressure and picking up a couple of quick wickets. We fought back well to hold the opposition to only 120, which was a great effort from all the team. The wicket takers being Kyle (2/3 off 3), Shankar Ravi (2/29), Riley Behlevanas (1/5) Ben O’Meara (1/28) and Buzz Burrows (1/10).

Heading out to bat, Kyle put his hand up to open with Gopy Parathan and the two batsmen set about the Beecroft bowlers with a vengeance! By the time Kyle fell for a blistering 65 (8×4 & 3×6) in the 12th over, they had piled on 91 and ensured that we would coast the rest of the way home. Gopy eventually fell for a well made 21 and the rest of the batsmen got us home in 15.4 overs with Riley Behlevanas closing the game out with a huge six.

Thank you again to Kyle for filling in and congratulations on your first 50! I’m sure we will see many more. Well done! A great win against old rivals, and a nice way to head into the main season.

4th Grade
Blue (C2 Grade Red) 4/139 defeated Hornsby 7/134 – we lost the toss and were sent into bat on a rough looking Montview Oval. Indranil Mukherjee (35) and Ian Paterson (29) got us off to a great start. The opening partnership was a quick fire 46 runs before Patto was caught taking on the bowler. Amit Sen (27) joined Indranil at the crease and the pair continued to take it to the bowlers. Alex Chidgey (23) and Ian Digby (16) finished the innings off with a few big boundaries. After an innings of all singles last week, Ian realised this week that it’s a lot easier to just send the ball into the fence!

Hornsby’s opening batsmen put on a 59 run partnership and really swung the match in their favour. Once we got that first breakthrough the boys lifted in the field and really turned up the pressure. This increase in pressure brought about 3 run outs and a couple of great catches. Requiring 38 runs from the last 4 overs the batsmen really took it to the bowlers, but our guys continued with great death bowling. Matt Digby (2/24) bowled a mature spell to close out the innings. A great team effort by the boys!

Red (C3 Grade) 7/77 lost to Thornleigh 101 – we lost toss and were chasing leather early on around the ground as Thornleigh openers put up 36 runs into the 4th over. Pav Kozyrev got the first breakthrough and our team started to get back into the game. 2/67 in 10 overs and then 101 all out was good comeback from the bowlers. Pav (2/8), Narendra (1/15) and Tarun (5/8) were best in the bowling. Tarun’s 5 for came in last over of the innings with 2 wickets in that over to close off batting innings.

We started slow and steady and were 1/9 after 4 overs. Enter Ramil De Silva who took on the opening bowlers and scored quick-fire 27 with 3 fours and a big six, where a replacement ball had to be used. 1/41 after 10 overs, we were in the run chase. We lost few wickets and the scoring rate dropped with score 4/55 after 15 overs. Requiring 46 runs of the last 5 overs, task was always going to be tough. Still all batsmen went for it and we finished innings on 7/77.

We lost game but again had some good time in the middle bowling/batting in lead-up to the main season. Bring on the main season!

5th Grade
Blue (C4 Grade) Vs Kissing Point – Report not yet received.

Red (D1 Grade) 3/112 defeated Castle Hill RSL 110 – after losing the toss again we were put into the field which was against the Captains plan to bat first. Jaskaran Singh (1/4 a new player for WHPCCC filling in at last minute after not playing cricket for 10 years and work colleague of Quan’s was Johnny on the spot early which put pressure on the Castle Hill side.

Steve Quanborough (2/16) opened from the other end and with Pratah Sinnnetamby (2/1) had Castle Hill in allsorts at 5/18 off 6 overs. A good partnership was had by Castle Hill but again it was Ian Williams (2/21, 2 overs) who was amongst It thanks to a couple of catches on the square leg/ mid-wicket boundary by Sullivan O’Brien and Zac Morris. A run out to Zac Morris and a caught and bowled to Perry Waldron (1/2) had Castle Hill at 9/86. A few runs by the last partnership were eventually stopped by a run out to Pratah Sinnetamby. Castle Hill all out for 110.

Our turn to bat on the small Fred Caterson 4 we put the batsman that contributed to 100 runs in the first game at 9 to 11 to give a few others ago. Ian Williams a new player to WPHCCC opened the batting and the fear was etched on his face. A couple of well edge/placed shots brought him 5 runs until a misjudged run ran him out. Roshan Withanage playing his first game for WPHCCC looked solid for 8 runs (2 4’s) until he hit one up in the air and was easily taken.

Enter Perry “tie my shoelace” Waldron who scored a fabulous 34 (retired not out) that steadied the ship for our team. Ben Waldron (14*) together with firstly Sullivan O’Brien (13 runs) and then Manny Sinnetamby (1*) brought us home with an over to spare. We played the 20th over to make sure of the score but the result was never in question once we had castle hill on the ropes. This was a fun game and meant that everyone in the side has had a bowl and bat in the T20s which was the aim.

Bring on the semi’s

Gold (D2 Grade) 2/66 lost to St Ives 1/82 – the pitch was Ok but the grass in the outfield quite long with a soft ground. We won the toss against St Ives (last year’s finalist) and batted first. We batted quite well with the opening pair of Luke Christensen (22) and James Asquith (21) scoring 43 runs before the first wicket was lost in the 15th over. We retired a few players along the way in order to allow other team members to have a bat. Michael Clipsham scored 8 runs which was exciting after a long absence from the game. We struggled with hitting boundaries with quite a few stopping just short of the line.

However, our bowling attack continued to be a problem with numerous leg and short pitched balls despatched to the boundary. Another difficult day in the field with 4 dropped catches two of which were very difficult. We will need to work on our bowling in order to improve our competitiveness. Michael Clipsham took his first wicket since returning to cricket so a memorable day for him. Things will improve as we play more. A big thank you to our juniors who were of great assistance in these last two T20 games.