A1 Grade

WPHC 253 Vs Hornsby – we won the toss and elected to bat on a fantastic Kenthurst pitch. Josh Banner made his A1 Grade debut and was keen to impress. Wickets fell consistently and we ended up in a spot of bother at 7/78, however, we were about to witness an amazing partnership.

Enter our 2 giants, the big guys, normally bowlers and all-round good blokes Hendo (66) and Buckets Scoular (60). This was a ‘David and Goliath’ battle that would not be ended by a little rock. No matter what small rocks the Opposition threw at the boys quiet often they ended up over the fence with some of the cleanest hitting of the season.

The tail showed the top order just how good Kenthurst was to bat on today, #thebowlers.

A number of records were broken during the day:

• James Makin with his 25 brought up his 5,000 career runs – only the 7^th player to score 5,000 runs in our history!
• Hendo and Buckets Scoular both scored their first 50
• The boys also set a record A1 Club record 8^th wicket partnership of 129.

We ended up on 253 and have set a massive target for Hornsby to get next week. A great day of batting.

A2 Grade

Blue (Rick) 142 Vs ARL 2/45 – the day begun with an occurrence that is almost as rare as WPHCCC Red getting bowled out for 33. We won the toss and decided to wield the willow. The opening pair started us off strongly with Chris “Willy” Williamson really showing his attacking class with (14) off 26 overs, Umesh “George Clumi” Murdeshwar (6) fell 94 short of his 100 after bottom edging one through to the keeper.

Matt “Tux” Gunaratne started off his innings strongly before leaving a ball that seamed roughly 6 meters back onto his pad, “hot tap is on the left buddy” the bowler ran through off his 4-step run up. Alex “Hooch” Turner followed suit with a sumptuous 0 off 1 delivery and swiftly returned to the pavilion. Daniel “Fiddy Cent” Fielder also fell for 1, before the tail wagged and saved our run rate. Julian “Sean Anthony” Raffel (29) & Jackson

“The Preedofile” Preedy (63*) enjoyed some time in the middle before Sean Anthony decided he’d middle one to mid-wicket off a half tracker with puss on it. Rowan “23” Keating (6) batted well around The Preedofile before he was also sent packing.

The Preedofile kept his good form going in a classic “Yes, NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!” call which saw the back of Rick “The Flair” Turner (0). Tom “Job” Hando (9) came to the crease and ensured we kept the run rate ticking over kept deciding to run short runs, $2. Nick “Ivan” Star came to the crease and had his front toe nail blown off, and was swiftly sent back without troubling the scorers. Overall a total of 142, much less than what we had intended, but it was what we had.

The bowling started off well with 23 & Job opening for us with tight economical bowling. Job managed to secure himself 2-16 off 6, & 23 finished with 0-28 off 5. Hooch & Willy finished the day off with 3 maidens.

A good hard game of cricket ahead for next week, going to be a nail biter.

Red (Simon) 93 lost to SKLPS 5/154 – A2 Red would like to use this space to make a formal apology to cricket. We apologise for what transpired today, our performance may be the worst thing scene on Australian soil since ‘that ball’ from Trevor Chappell.

We want to say sorry to the fans that have been with us the whole way this season and to all the kids that we’ve let down. We hope our performance doesn’t discourage you from dreaming of one day representing our great club in the most prestigious A2s.

Even at the highest level people are still human and today proved just that. As a unit we will be reflecting on today’s defeat for some time and questioning what could have been done to fix it. Was there a lack of finger buns? Did we not have enough Maximus? Should we have put another back on the leg side? These are all things we’ll consider for next time in order to prevent such a tragic performance from happening again. Once again we’d like to say we’re sorry and please don’t tell the MCC how badly we played today, they may cancel cricket world wide if they hear about it.

In other news, there are some Australian cricketers not considering retirement after today. Huge congrats to Elise Perry on her first international hundred. A2 Red will be reaching out to her people in the next few days, we see some real potential in her and are hoping she’s ready to start taking her cricket seriously by signing an A2 contract.

B1 Grade

WPHC 5/258 Vs Hornsby – on a perfect day for cricket, we won the toss and went into bat. We started at a steady pace losing only the one wicket before drinks sitting 1/67 after 20 overs going into the first break.

Our steady run continued through the middle overs with contributions from Aaron Carlini 49, Hollywood 29, Dinesh 23 and Ani with 20. This set us up very nicely to finish the day, and in came Prats and Nathaniel who did just that. Scoring quickly the two bought up at unbeaten 106 run partnership! The day ended with Prats Datar unbeaten on 68 and Nathaniel Chidgey unbeaten on 48. Congratulations to Nathaniel who went on to bring up his 1,000 career runs.

We are nicely set up for next week finishing on 5/258, hoping the weather holds out!

B2 Grade

Blue (Tim) 103 lost to Normanhurst-Warrawee 3/110 – Wortho lost the toss and we were put into bat. Raghu Chary (16) and Zac Turner (30) batted superbly through the first 11 overs due to some steady & well disciplined bowling.

Raghu went chasing a beauty of an outswinger. In came Jayson Smart (7) who batted resolutely and well until unfortunately being run-out from a rocket arm at cover. Captain Wortho (12) and Zac Turner put on a crucial partnership until Zac finally succumbed to a decent delivery. Zac batted with resolve, patience and maturity belying his age (30 overs) it was a pleasure to witness.

Nick Duck and Cam Bish came and went quickly, but a 30 run partnership from Matt Rashleigh (22) and Nikki Omeara (12) staved us from batting disaster to inch our score to 103 all out. In reply our bowlers were very unlucky with Normo 3/110 (26) batting like rain was predicted next week, pasting us all over the park. James Reynolds 0-14 (7), was the pick of our bowlers closely followed up by Sam Hando 1/26 (5), we will be trying our best not to concede an outright.

Blue team onward and upward!

Red (Rob) 116 Vs SKLPS 8/64 – we won the toss and elected to bat. We were put on the back-foot early after losing a wicket in the 2nd over. Eric Junkkari (21) once again set the standard with the bat. Ray Khamis (18) and Brent Larkham (20) took our score to 5/71. Rob Knapman put on 21* at the end of the innings to give us a total of 116.

With only a modest total to defend on a fast Cheltenham Oval, we knew we had to bowl well and create early chances. What followed was perfect execution. Aaron Hawkins (3/29) picked up 2 wickets in his first over. Aaron bowled with serious heat to have the batsmen jumping all around the crease.

Dean Carlin (5/25) bowled his best spell of the season. Dean took 5 wickets that included a hat trick opportunity.

Aaron and Dean ripped through the Opposition to have them at 8/64. We will look to finish the job next week!

C1 Grade

WPHC 56 lost to Hornsby 4/165 – winning the toss and batting first, our openers did well to see off opening bowlers. This was the only brief good period in otherwise lacklustre batting performance.

Wickets start to fall with the very first ball of the first change bowler. Opening partnership of 14 runs was second best, behind 8^th wicket putting on 19 runs. Pratah (16) and Ryan Loveridge (13) were only two batsmen to get into double figures.

We needed to bowl well to have any chance in the game. We got one early wicket but that then other Hornsby opener took control of the game with some aggressive hitting.

At the end of day we are 109 runs behind in the first innings with declaration expected to come anytime soon on day2. It will be good chance to see our batsmen back to playing to their true potential.

C2 Grade

WPHC 125 Vs Glenorie 2/74 – being asked to bat first we started well with Will Harvey and Anthony Kwok hitting the ball nicely before Will fell and Anthony unfortunately suffered a torn hamstring, retiring hurt for 20.

A steady procession of wickets saw us 6/62 before Buzz and Dave Behlevanas (21) steadied things for a while to soak up overs and take the score beyond 100. Anthony bravely resumed with a runner and we were able to add another 20 with Anthony remaining 30*. All out 125.

The opening bowling spell was fast and probing with Scott and Tanay both picking up wickets to have Glenorie 2/26, but from there, despite a couple of close calls, we weren’t able to pry out the next wicket and the score finished up at 2/74.

A lot of work to do next week, but never say never, we do still have 50 runs which we need to make the Opposition work hard for and make a game of it.

C3 Grade

WPHC 125 & 1/23 lost to Hornsby 9/182 dec – we lost the toss and were put to bat which was anyway what we had wanted. The short square boundaries at Fred Caterson 4 is always an interesting one and you never know what’s a good score to defend.

A steady start by openers to put up 36 runs and that was the best partnership of the day, the next best coming for the 10^th wicket between Ben Waldron and Shankar Ravi for 32 runs. Finishing at a par below score of 125 just before tea break, with some notable scores from Peza 19, Manu 15, Ben 22 and Indranil 29.

We knew taking wickets would be the key to get us back into the game and at one time we had Hornsby at 7/88. Some excellent outfield catching by Cliff and Manu Verma (2 catches) and excellent bowling by Amith Ninan (4/29) and Amitava Sen (3/39) gave us a chance. But we lost the momentum close to the end with some big hitting by one of their batsmen (had a dropped chance in the first ball he faced) and going on to score a quick-fire century. They finished their innings at 182 and we had to see off 4 overs in the 2^nd innings.

Some change in batting order as Shankar Ravi was given the opportunity to open since he was not out in 1^st innings. We finally closed the day at 1/23 with Sreeni 20* and Shankar 2*.

A rare opportunity to cause an upset in 2^nd innings but first to remove the deficit of 33 runs and then look to build a considerable lead. It’s not all lost and everything to play for as a team.

D1 Grade

WPHC 7/386 Vs Berowra – we won the toss and elected to bat in conditions very suited for batting.

Things started off well with openers Ian (47) and Connor (20) steadying the innings from the get-go. A few nice batting performances and partnerships saw Gautum (47), Steve (45), David (22) and Siby (15) all put valuable runs on the board.

But the star of the show on the day was Dylan Bish. Dylan scored 149 runs in just 37 overs, tearing through the Berowra bowling attack. This ton led West Pennant Hills to a score of 7/386 in just a day’s play. This was our 470^th century.

Although a small ground, a good bowling performance next week should mean their score of 7/386 is defended.

D2 Grade

WPHC 178 Vs Kissing Point 0/24 – these two sides are equal third on the competition ladder. As such, it was going to be a crucial game today.

Captain Mike won the toss again and elected to bat thinking that Foxglove South pitch is very narrow and would cause problems for the bowlers. I don’t know what our top order was thinking because they decided to have a go at anything that moved in front of them. After 15 overs we were 4 for 39 runs and things were not looking rosy.

Captain Mike came to crease thinking he had to play a Captains knock and calm things down. He then batted very patiently for the next three hours hitting 34 runs. Brent Van Wck ably assisted him hitting 46 runs in his knock.

This partnership of 90 runs moved the score to 145 in the 45th over. We were all out for 178 which included 40 sundries coming from no balls in the main because of the tiny width of the pitch.

Kissing Point had to bat 13 overs which they did without loss for 24 runs. Unfortunately we dropped 2 catches which would have been very handy in this period. We will need to bowl with some considerable discipline next week if we wish to have a chance of winning this match.

We made this match much more difficult for ourselves by our lack of discipline in our batting. Let’s redeem the situation with some precise line and length in our bowling in Week 2.