A1 Grade

WPHC 61 & 9/215 lost to Normanhurst-Warrawee 7/70 – much of the same as we drew this day’s play. The boys couldn’t have put in a stronger effort to save a game.

We started the game with Normo sitting on 7/70 and a 9 run lead. We bowled well but were unlucky as they reached an 80 run lead. Tim Scoular was the pick of the bowlers taking two important wickets.

We were set the task of surviving and building a lead for the remainder of the day. We worked really hard as a batting unit, led by the future of A Grade opening batting, Phil ‘Philemon’ Wurth leading the way and batting well under pressure to score 47 in an awesome display of hitting.

Every batsman that was in today worked really well in partnerships as we ground out the day, finishing at 9/215. With Normanhurst submitting to the fact that they couldn’t get an outright.

A truly strong performance from the boys with everyone scoring runs. Josh Mathias scored 37, Tis Mistry 31 and Bailey 31 to get us in a strong position. The boys worked really hard today and already looking forward to next season.

A2 Grade

WPHC Red (Simon) 170 lost to Kenthurst 2/171 – Les Hore 2 was a crime scene, blood was flowing everywhere, yet you couldn’t see it on the lovely new electric salmon team shirts. We got spanked more than Barnaby Joyce on a “business trip”. Kenthurst rocked up with full gear while we were just trying on our new Milo Cricket shirts and throwing around a plastic, yellow ball.

The traditional way to cheat in cricket is to lower the other team’s score, I wish someone had told us that before today. It was only when they were 2 down for 170 that we realised bowling short and wide wasn’t an effective strategy on a cricket field and that bowling with one our Milo cricket balls probably would’ve made batting a lot harder. We’ll know for next time, runs = bad, wickets = good.

To paraphrase Homer Simpson, “In Australia, first you get the runs, then you get the wickets, then you get the women..” RIP A2 Electric Salmon

Luke Herzog was unavailable at the game today, but we’ve heard that he is now Facebook friends with Steve Quanborough. @marriedatfirstsightaustralia

WPHC Blue (Rick) 142 lost to SKLPS 228:

For reference:

• Rowan Keating = 23
• Chris Williamson = Willy
• Alex Turner = Hooch
• Jules Raffel = Sean Anthony
• Rick Turner = The Flair
• Nick Starr = Ivan
• Jackson Preedy = The Preedofile
• Taki Manolelis = Taki Manolelis
• Justin Edwards = Clive
• Peter Flook = Slender

We needed 210 today to win the game. This was achievable if we batted well. Well that didn’t happen. We went from 1/19 overnight to 4/30 in the first 8 overs losing Fids, Hooch and Jobbie.

SKLPS did bowl very well and kept pressure on the batsmen. We couldn’t get any decent partnerships going until a 40 run partnership between Fabs and Preeds. In the end we weren’t good enough with the bat today and were bundled out for 142. Best of the batting Justin Edwards 44, Fabs 32, Preeds 16 and Umesh 14.

B1 Grade

WPHC 5/243 dec drew with Kenthurst 3/166 – going into week 2 of this must win game, we started the day 5/200, so quick runs were in order. It didn’t take long before Ben Meikle started sending the ball all over the park! The team scored 43 runs in 5.5 overs, Ben hitting 39 of them, to bring up a solid 80 run unbeaten partnership with Ronic Bedi. Ben Meikle finishing the day 55 not out, and Ronic Bedi 33 not out.

We now had a minimum of 67 overs to get 10 wickets, we went in very confident. Unfortunately things were very slow, and it took 32 overs to get our first wicket with only 83 runs on the board. The day continued slowly with only the 3 wickets falling all day and a draw declared with 8 overs to go in the day. Kenthurst ended on 3/165 with Kobby O’Meara topping the bowling with 2/19, followed by Ravin Wijeasuriya 1/13 off 6 and Matt Watts 0/17 off 11.

Our next game is now the must win, with our fate now in the hands of other teams!

B2 Grade

WPHC Red (Rob) 122 lost to ARL 7/124 – we knew we would have to bowl well to defend 122 on a much faster looking N.T.R.A. Our opening bowlers kept the runs down and the first breakthrough came in the 6th over to have the opposition 1/13.

The batsmen dug in while our bowlers couldn’t maintain the pressure, only sending down 5 good balls an over. Matt Digby (1/28) took the 2nd wicket with a great off-cutter sending the bails sailing. Aaron Hawkins (1/24) came on for his 2nd spell and took an important wicket. The 4th wicket didn’t fall until just after tea with the Opposition 4/105. Dean Carlin then took another 3 quick wickets to have ARL 7 down. Dean finished with 5/17. Unfortunately we just didn’t have enough runs on the board.

A tough match that can only stoke the fire leading into the Semi’s.

WPHC Blue (Tim) 282 drew with SKLPS 6/173 – warm conditions met us today at Glenorie and so Wortho kept us batting for 14 overs pushing our overnight score from 8-223 to 282 all out. Some great tail ender wagging (batting partnership of 59) from James Reynolds (26) and Wortho (43) leading the Opposition exasperated and in awe.

This led to 57 overs at SKLPS, some bloody gorgeous bowling ensued from Sam Hando (0-12), Matt Rashleigh (0-6) Nikki Omeara (0-21) and James Reynolds (1-25) all creating plentiful chances with no luck.

Enter the spin cartel of Ollie Maybury (2-22) and Raghu Chary (1-65) who bowled extremely well, without the batsman playing shots they manfully produced spell after spell combining well with Jayson Smart (0-18) the most unluckiest bowler ever constantly creating half chances and dotting up an end.

Despite changes in the field SKLPS went about dead batting well. Wortho very pleased overall with the team effort, bring on Lankan islanders next week. Blue team onward and upward!

C1 Grade

WPHC 131 lost to ARL 201 – chasing 202 to win on Campbell Park, we resumed proceedings to an ok start from overnight score of 2/56. 13 runs were scored in 2.3 overs before Arjun (32) was unlucky to hit a short ball in the air and finding a fielder. After this we did not get any partnerships going, losing wickets at regular intervals.

From 2/69 we lost 6 wickets with addition of 37 runs only to be on 8/106. Two other batsmen to get into double figures were Tarun (37) and Kishore Ramprasad (14 no).

C2 Grade

WPHC 8 dec 96 defeated Kenthurst 90 & 8/171 – needing 45 more to take first innings points, we did it the hard way, but some good batting from Jack Barry and Cody Waters got us across the line and we sent Kenthurst back in to chase the outright win we desperately needed to keep our Semi hopes alive.

The Opposition came out firing with nothing to lose, but tight bowling from Tanay and Scott saw them 3/27. Some strong partnerships developed from here, and despite an excellent direct hit run out from Dave Behlevanas (bringing up the 7000th wicket n C2 for the Club – see the story in the Anecdotes) the runs added up and time slipped away to take the outright result out of the equation.

Tanay completed an excellent match with the ball taking 4/45 (Match figures of 9/70), with Scott and Dave the other wicket takers.

Still a pleasing result to pick up the win, and many thanks to Jack, Areeb, Nick and Andrew for their efforts filling in for us this match.

Next match sees us playing the top of the table Beecroft side, so we will be giving our all to knock them off their perch and continue our winning streak!

C3 Grade

WPHC 7/258 dec defeated Kenthurst 236 – simple mathematics at the start of Day 2, take 10 wickets to defend 1^st innings score.

The team showed lot of positive body language and what a start in the first over by Ben Waldron to take the Kenthurst not out captain to a no-shot offered lbw. Ben carried on a good spell and took out the Opposition’s best batsmen with a short delivery and a fine catch behind the stumps. Ryan Loveridge bowled with lot of steam but had no luck in the first spell. Kenthurst then just stopped scoring and at the end of tea break they were 4/106.

The pressure was kept on both ends with medium pace bowling and bad luck to Amith Ninan not getting any wickets and the dropped catches did not help. With a change of bowling with Peza, we finally got the much needed breakthrough after tea and then the pacers were brought back. Amitava was bowling tight line and length and brought down a mini lower order collapse taking 3 quick wickets. He finished his spell with a 5-fer and it was his maiden 5-wicket haul.

At one point Kenthurst was down 9 for 180 runs still behind 78 runs and the last pair started to swing their bats. Slowing down the pace did not help and they scored freely taking the score to chase less than 25 runs. Finally the new ball was taken and Rhino was given the opportunity and he did not fail, in his first ball taking a nice caught and bowled to bring an end to the Opposition innings. The wicket takers were Ben 2/27, Rhino 2/37, Amitava 5/40 and Peza 1/23.

With this win, we are almost secured now for the finals and much deserved one too. A special note of thanks to Vishaal Nathan to be out on the field whole day as 12^th man giving the fielders some breaks, a great team spirit.

D1 Grade

WPHC 152 defeated St Colah 124 & 3/90 – looking for an outright we started the day 2/49 Xander Vink (31) and Steve (41) started well, showing intent from the first ball. Xander departed trying to get the run rate up in the 34th over. Connor (17) and Steve put on a handy partnership with a lot of quick singles and twos. Once Connor and Steve departed, Roshan (13) came out hitting three 4’s in a row. Unfortunately we only put on 103 which was not ideal for an outright. Our innings finished with us bowled out for 152.

St Colah openers came out and did not hold back on our opening bowlers, hitting 55 after the first 10 overs of the innings. First change Paul Vink (1/18) and second change David Larkham (1/24) made the break-throughs. Connor (1/5) got a wicket at the end before the two captains agreed to call it a day. St Colah finishing with 3/90.

D2 Grade

WPHC 5/160 defeated Hornsby 155 – last week we had bowled HORNSBY out for 155. Hornsby is the competition leader while we were equal third at the end of Round 12. We had to play 19 overs and managed to be 1 for 21 at the end of the first days play at Samuel King Oval. On Day 2 of Round 13 we needed another 135 runs to win the match. Hornsby has 4 bowlers in the top 10 of best bowlers in this grade.

Ben Kinchington as opener continued on from his 14 runs from last week to reach 32 runs before being caught at mid off by the opposition captain in the 35^th over of this match. Ian Williams was holding up the other end very well and back to his old solid self hitting a number of boundaries on consecutive balls.

Wanam Tamhankar came in to bat but was bowled by a yorker when our team was on 70 runs in the 42nd over. We lost two further quick wickets to be 5 for 91 runs after 48 overs. At this stage we were a little concerned as we needed another 65 runs and we were getting towards the tail end of our team.

However, both Ian Williams (65 not out) and Luke Christensen (21 not out) combined to hit the remaining 65 runs without loss by the 65th over. Ian batted throughout the innings and keep us in the race with his 10 boundaries.

This was a fantastic win as we both out batted and out bowled the leading team in this D2 competition. Hopefully this will give us confidence to continue to play solid cricket in the next round.

We should be equal second with this win and possibly with a higher quotient. We seem to be gathering momentum towards the semi-finals which is where we want to be at this stage of the game.