A1 Grade

WPHC 2/77 Vs Mt Colah 146 – we lost the toss and bowled on a surprisingly good track at Turramurra Oval after the Thursday night rain. Our boys turned up to play and were hungry and positive from the start. Andy ‘Fernie’ Mieks had the ball on a string, showing some ‘Warney’ inspired leg spin. It was a spinners wicket with the Team spinners taking 9 of the 10 wickets.

Fielding was awesome and the boys showing some Premiership worthy intent. Mt Colah ended up with 146.

We had an hour to bat ad make sure we setup a massive win for next week. We finished with 2/77 with Alex ‘Robbo’ scoring an unbeaten 48* with a six in th last over, setting himself for a big century next week.

Batting:

Robbo – 48*

Bowling

Mieks – 5/66 (17)

JP – 4/23 (12)

Jackson Preedy – 1/12 (6).

A2 Grade

Blue (Rick) Vs Berowra – no play at The Glade Oval after the heavy rain on Friday. This game will now be played as a 1-Dayer next weekend.

Red (Simon) 4/169 dec defeated Castle Hill RSL 94 & 3/53 – we returned to the home of cricket today, Greenway Park, to a depleted Castle Hill RSL. Tisveer “this story is not a lie” Mistry was reportedly disgruntled that Hungerford’s 10 year old son had not been given the call up and he was unable to recreate his first A2 wicket.

Allen “$2 no blazer” Raffel won the toss and decided to bowl first. Luke “President of the Steve Quanborough Fan Club” Herzog got the day going early with a courageous spell that included a 1/19 over. When asked for comment later he said, “It was brave to finish the over.” Clearly President of the Steve Quanborough Fan Club doesn’t realise that bowlers are obligated to finish the overs they start. Wickets then fell consistently as all bowlers chipped in and Volc “Volc” Volc took a couple of sharp snares at gully, when asked later Volc still managed to comment on when he used to be fit.

Their turn with the ball started poorly by not taking advice from Captain Emeritus Simon “who needs a hammy” Smyth. He advised them to put two blokes back on the leg, because just like in Volc’s bedroom, he pulls a lot.

Stanton “Pon” Tam looked comfortable being promoted up the order, or up the A2 Red if you will. Will you? Leading to a 45 second lightening round of Pon jokes, roughly the amount of time it takes for Volc to put two blokes back on the leg. It was all round contribution that led to us declaring 4 down with a 70 run lead. Just in time for President of the Steve Quanborough Fan Club to watch the Cox Plate.

We came back out to bowl Volcless, if you haven’t heard he’s still recovering from his hundred last week. One of the all time great slower balls got This Story Is Not a Lie his first adult Hungerford out and a sharp snare from Daniel “Clean bowled of a full toss” Cardigan led the way to us having Castle Hill 3fa at the end of play.

3 Votes – Stanton “Pon” Tam

2 Votes – Stanton “Pon” Tam

1  Votes – Volc’s sticky wicket (bedroom floor)

Honourable mention – Allen “$2 no blazer” Raffel. Getting out the coke flavoured tic tac for a local Asian man.

B1 Grade

WPHC 6/223 Vs Castle Hill RSL – at Dural Park with the boundaries pushed waaay back, we won the toss and decided to bat. Things didn’t go to plan to start with losing Aaron in the 5^th over and Dinesh not long after.

Going into the first drinks break we were sitting at 2/60 after 20. Michael Gunn being promoted to an opening batsman sat very well, with Gunny steadying our innings for the majority of the day and batting superbly! With wickets falling on the other end, there were no big partnerships to speak of until late in the day, when Ben Meikle and Michael Fiedler upped the run rate and put on a fantastic 96 run partnership for the 6^th wicket! At the end of the day we finished 6/223!

Highest run scorers were Michael Fiedler 65 not out, Michael Gun 60 and Ben Meikle 38.

B2 Grade

Blue (Tim) 150 Vs Berowra 3/78 – Wortho lost the toss again but we got what we wanted and that was to bat first with small straight boundaries (Foxglove North) tantalising our batsman.

After some very good disciplined bowling from Berowra we lost Jayson Smart (0) early. After some much needed turnover of strike between Raghu & Oliver Maybury (6) the former losing his wicket. Ruben Alexander (10) played a cameo, Napier Gryst (13) always looks promising with the bat chased one that seemed to hold into the astro (story of some of our batting today).

Raghu & Wortho combined to bring the score along to 64 before Wortho (11) got out, disappointingly was looking good at the crease. Raghu Chary (26) finally got out in the 29th over (if we could learn to play like u), the tail thankfully wagged with contributions from Nick Duck (5), Matt Rashleigh (19), Cam Bish (14) batted really well, with Nikki Omeara (Ben Cutting look-a-like with 32) top scoring with a well compiled innings.

In reply Berowra are 3-78 with Oliver Maybury (1/17), James Reynolds (1/6) & Jayson Smart (1/8) the wicket takers.

Red (Rob) 1/20 Vs Lankan Islanders 194 – normal services resumed as Naps lost the toss and we found ourselves out in the field.

Aaron Hawkins (2/23) worked hard in his opening spell and was rewarded with an edge that was caught behind. Brent Larkham (2/24) found his rhythm and got the 2nd breakthrough. Rob Knapman (3/33) was supported well with safe hands in the field to pick up the next couple. Eric Junkkari (1/9) and Tony Mandile (1/17) took a wicket each before Matt Digby (1/18) set up the dangerous Islanders batsman with a great line and got the wicket with a very sharp catch by Tony in the slips.

We went out to see off 9 overs. Unfortunately we lost a night watchman in the 3rd over. Tony Mandile and Rob Knapman dug in to see out the day. With all our batsmen still to come we will look to chase down the modest total at a small Annangrove Park next week.

C1 Grade

WPHC 6/273 Vs Mt Colah – turning up at a good looking Mt. Kuringai Oval, Mt. Colah won the toss and sent us in to bat. Despite the loss of an early wicket, we made a solid if steady start to the game. Zac Turner and Richard Hughes played a disciplined partnership attacking the wayward deliveries whilst giving little opportunity for a wicket, before Rich fell for 33.

Zac continued to play with great focus and brought up his 50. Harrison Miedler contributed a short lived yet entertaining innings, before Andrew Fiedler contributed 47 runs in an excellent 122 run partnership with Zac. This included Zac reaching a highly impressive century before falling in the last over of the day on 134, a great achievement with great patience and timing. This is Zac’s maiden ton and the 466^th in our History.

We finished on 6-274 and will look to back up a great batting display with our bowling next week.

C2 Grade

WPHC 147 Vs Castle Hill RSL 2/125 – winning the toss seemed like a good start to the day and we decided to have a bat.

The highlight of the day was watching Club Legend Ross Anderson heading out to open the batting and chalking up his 500th innings for the club! Such an outstanding achievement and as usual, Ross was inspiring, showing us every bit of the experience gained throughout those many innings by negotiating a barrage of fast and short stuff to see off the early jitters amongst our side and not falling until 65 was on the board and contributing 24 himself. Once again showing what a valuable player he is to have out on the paddock and clearly relishing the challenge with as much determination and dedication as the 499 innings that came before!

Peter Lees continued his good form with 40, but Darcy Ward (23) and Tanay (20) were the only other batsmen in double figures. All out 147, which on Greenup is a tough total to defend.

We have had better days in the field, but all bowlers did manage to create half chances with probably a dozen near misses that on another day may have gone to hand. Tanay (1/14) and Dave Behlevanas (1/25) were the exceptions and both were the deserved wicket takers.

Next week is a new challenge, and we will have to lift to ensure we are not placed under pressure for the outright, but this is a team that has the talent to turn things around quickly with some more application to the task.

C3 Grade

WPHC 111 lost to Castle Hill RSL 3/149 – good conditions to win the toss at Fred Caterson 2-3 and without hesitation batted first.

The outfield was expected to be slow so lot of running required between the wickets to make a competitive total. A steady start by openers but did not last long and we lost wickets at regular intervals. Finishing at a below par score of 111 just at tea break. Some notable scores from Anthony 13, Rommel 14, Vishaal 16 and Indranil 19.

Castle Hill RSL seems to already in party mode at the ground and the batters saw off some good opening spell and put on some quick runs before close of play. Finishing at 149 runs losing just 3 wickets. Wickets were shared between Areeb Rashid 2 and Sreeni 1. We have a lot to catch up Week 2 to make this anything competitive but one never knows what can happen unless you try.

D1 Grade

WPHC Vs Thornleigh 6/304 – the game started a little late as everyone fought the usual Pennant Hills Road traffic. Thornleigh won the toss and elected to bat.

Things started off very well for us and we took wickets at a steady pace…..and we had them at 5/92. Dylan (1), Steve (1), Connor (1) and David (2) all picked up wickets and things were looking good.

By the 30 over mark though, the ball already looked like something you would find at the bottom of a kit bag. And from here on things went down hill. Thornleigh put on a 185 run partnership and took their score to 277 before they lost another wicket.

A tough day in the field today that tested everyone’s mental strength. A big thanks to Alistair Fullerton for helping us out at short notice. Probably not the best introduction to senior cricket!

D2 Grade

WPHC 0/29 Vs Thornleigh 242 – Captain Mike won the toss again (5 from 6 so far) and elected to bowl against the number one team in the competition.

Ben Kinchington opened the bowling and got his first wicket after 17 runs were scored by Thornleigh in the seventh over. The second wicket fell at 59 runs by an lbw from Nerva Desai in the 17th over. The third wicket to fall occurred in the next over at 70 runs from the bowling of John Rose. We were bowling a fairly disciplined line and length at this stage. Thiru Pukazthenthi managed to hit the middle stump in the 27th over taking the fourth batter out of the equation. Five overs later another wicket fell on 126 runs via a catch to John Rose off the bowling of Agni Sen.

So by the 32nd over we had taken 5 wickets for 126 runs. Thornleigh then managed a partnership of 80 runs without losing a wicket to take them to 206 runs. We had also bowled our slower bowlers but it was noticeable that the batters were hitting the slow bowlers to the boundary. So Captain Mike decided to only bowl the medium and faster bowlers at this point. He brought back Ben, John, Ian and Nerav for that reason.

Three wickets were taken at the 206, 206 and 207 mark with two catches and one bowled with one a piece to Ian Williams, John Rose and Nerav Desai between the 48th and 50th overs. The last two batters were caught off the bowling of Nerav Desai in the 57th over. So Thornleigh were all out for 242 after 57 overs leaving us to bat 15 overs.

Captain Mike asked Ben Kinchington and Ian Williams to take a night watchman role for those 15 overs which they did without loss scoring 29 runs between them . So we have a further 214 runs to get in order to beat the number 1 team. Hopefully, we can do this as Thornleigh have won al their games up to now.

Our best figures were 3 for 30 off 6 overs from Nerav Desai. John Rose took 2 for 28 off 14 overs and Ian Williams took 2 from 44 off 9 overs.

Fellas, a job well done with a good chance to beat this team if we can just keep our heads together and bat in a positive but sensible manner.