A1 Grade

WPHC 253 lost to Hornsby 8/258 – we began the day positively with some tight bowling from Darshan Pandya and Jobbo. We got 4 wickets in the first session and things were looking good. Hornsby batted really well and we were a bit unlucky in the 2^nd session with some half chances and decisions.

A massive middle order partnership meant that Hornsby deserved a well earned victory. We didn’t do a lot wrong today. This loss hurts us, however, we are hungry for a grand final replay next round. Bring it on!

A2 Grade

Blue (Rick) 142 lost to ARL 9/152 – we were desperately unlucky today not to defeat the ladder leaders. Commencing the day at 2/45 we needed a few early wickets and our bowlers served up exactly what was required.

Quick aggressive bowling backed up by excellence in the field. Rowan ‘Keats’ Keating and Peter ‘Slender’ Flook started brilliantly followed by Tom ‘Jobbie’ Hando and Bailey ‘Slinky” Miedler. At drinks ARL were 4/83 and the game was in the balance. Slinky snagged a pole straight after drinks and at 5/83 we were right in the game.

Some unlucky calls and plain bad luck saw us fall just short as ARL worked their way to 9/152 at tea where we agreed to call the game. Keats hit the off stump and the bails didn’t dislodge, Slinky had a very close LBW (yorker striking the batsman on the full in front) turned down. That was the difference between a win and a close loss today.

We showed we belonged in this grade today with a superb effort. Bowling efforts Keats 3/43, Jobbie 3/39, Slinky 2/31 and Slender 1/27. Great effort from the boys today.

Red (Simon) 93 & 8/196 lost to SKLPS 8/140 dec & 8/196 – after needing to apologise to cricket last week, this week we were better. Our pleas for Ellyse Perry to join our team were ignored, so we succumbed to needing to play better cricket ourselves. Some call this accountability.

SKLPS came out for a slog, and when Mikey ‘Cheat’ Fiedler wasn’t calling 6’s 4’s, he was taking snares at mid off. Gandis ‘No Proposal’ Herzog took the only 3 wickets to fall today, to give him a 5 fa and bank. Kaity appeared impressed. Gandis also top scored with 76 for SKLPS. It was a brave performance.

Our turn to bat, and with a big deficit ahead of us, Twist ‘Outgunned’ Mistry hit a quick fire 23, to get us off to a positive start. At 4/58, things were looking about as promising as a Luke Herzog Bucks Party, but Maxim ‘Toey’ Bennett (62) and Ross ‘Stick Cricket’ Holdman (48) batted brilliantly, to put an outright loss out of reach. Some of the stroke play ranged for exquisitely brilliant to Movember.

In other news, Raffa beat Hollywood to a chase at fine leg.

A highlight of the day was Mr and Mrs Banner turning up, making it clear that they wanted to support us, not Volc, who was not playing Week 2. It was a nice touch.

3 votes – Kaity ‘Ringless’ Herzo

2 votes – Mr Banner

1 vote – Mrs Banner

B1 Grade

WPHC 5/258 dec defeated Hornsby 222 – going into week 2, the rain was threatening, so we declared at the start of play with 258 runs to defend. The defence started off in a fantastic fashion, taking 3 wickets by the first drinks break, putting an aggressive Hornsby at 3/71 after 20 overs. Though the middle session things became rough.

With a few dropped catches Hornsby put in a 99 run partnership for the 4th wicket, scoring at a great pace. It wasn’t until Ben Meike took 2 of the key wickets putting us right back into the game! Wickets then began to fall in constant flow, with all the bowlers contributing! With Hornsby battling right down to the end, we took the 10th wicket shortly after the last drinks break, bringing home a 36 run win!

Best of the bowlers were Ben Meikle 4/50 off 14, Kristoff O’Meara 2/25 off 13 and Nathaniel Chidgey 2/27 off 10.5 overs.

B2 Grade

Blue (Tim) 103 & 37 lost outright to Normanhurst-Warrawee 201 – we started the day with 9 so 2 fielders down wasn’t an ideal start.

We toiled hard with James Reynolds (3/45 off 13), who is bowling outstandingly at present, so many unplayable balls, inspiring to the rest of his teammates. Raghu Chary (3/18 off 5) bowled fantastically to restrict Normanhurst to 8-201. What happened next was disastrous all out for 8-37! Wortho top scored with 11. Blue team onward and upward … I hope!

Red (Rob) 116 & 7/150 dec defeated SKLPS 66 & 5/132 – we started the day requiring 2 wickets and 52 runs ahead. It took just 2.2 overs to claim first innings with Aaron Hawkins taking both wickets in the first 2 balls of his 2nd over. Aaron finished with 5/31 and Dean Carlin 5/25. A fantastic bowling performance by the 2 opening bowlers.

Eric ‘Duck Murderer’ Junkkari (29) and Zac Morris (17) opened the batting and showed positive intent early. Andrew Morris (55) and Brent Larkham (30) put on a 68 run partnership and with a declaration imminent a few wickets fell with batsmen hitting out. We declared at 7/150 and a lead of 200 with 30 overs to bowl.

Two quick wickets thanks to 2 really sharp catches at cover by Brent Larkham saw us in with a shot at the Outright. The Opposition batsmen dug in, and although we took another few wickets, we couldn’t finish them off. A great win against the ladder leaders.

C1 Grade

WPHC 56 and 6/191  lost to Hornsby 9/209 dec – the day started off with the Opposition continuing from their dominant position, comfortably poised at 165/4 with a sizeable lead of 109 runs over our first innings total (56). However, star bowlers Ryan (4 wickets) and Alex (3 wickets) bowled extremely well to end Hornsby’s first innings at 209/9.

The task at hand was simple – to bat out the remaining day. After a short lived opening partnership and wickets falling at regular intervals Captain Tarun (83*) and Nathan (22) stitched together a valuable partnership to put the Team in a very safe position. This, along with more contributions from every other batsman, with the help of some extras allowed us to steer our innings in the direction we wished to go.

Ryan (9*) and Tarun finished off the innings with the team at 191/6, managing to get a lead of 38 and successfully achieving the task of batting out the day.

Overall, a much-improved performance with both the bat and ball which gives us plenty of confidence for our upcoming games.

C2 Grade

WPHC 124 & 3/63 lost to Glenorie 6/222 – some days you head off to the game and you know you’re up against it. The great thing about playing cricket for our Club is that you can still look to enjoy the game and take as much as you can from spending an afternoon with a great bunch of friends and challenging ourselves to improve.

We had a day that was focused not on winning, but improving. Unfortunately the Opposition passed our score without the loss of another wicket and from there we had to try and maintain our efforts to slow their run rate and buy time to avoid pressure for an outright. We stuck to our plan and pushed the opposition taking another 4 wickets before they declared at 6/222. Darcy Ward bowling with good pace to collect 2/28, and a couple of great run outs from Tanay and Will.

Heading out to bat, we wanted to shut up shop needing to face 45 overs to avoid the outright. Darcy fell early, but Dave Behlevanas promoted to opener, and Tanay Hira played two of the best rearguard innings a skipper could ask for.

Both batsmen played extremely patiently and soaked up 30 overs before the partnership was broken after excellent application from Tanay (18) and a phenomenal innings from Dave B (3 off 30 overs!!) setting the platform for Murray and Peter to bat out the last 10 overs with both normally aggressive batsmen blocking out to ensure we only lost first innings.

A massive thank you to Rob and Aden Hanich who stepped up to help us out this match, and to Joel Behlevanas who turned up to help field, score and umpire.

We lost, but had a great, challenging day of cricket against a fantastic bunch of guys from the opposing team and had some great performances from several team members. Now we’re looking forward to breaking the winning drought next round.

C3 Grade

WPHC 125 & 9/243 lost to Hornsby 9/182 dec & 5/126 – having lost by 1st innings in week 1 and playing one short this week in the batting line-up, the boys started with the right intent of causing some damage to the opponents. Sreeni Pillamarri struck form with a quick-fire 40 continuing on from last week.

The 2nd innings score was a perfect example of what happens when the middle order fires which was long overdue for this team. Consistent scoring from Manu Verma (29), Ramil De Silva (22) and Cliff Greenhaigh (26) saw the runs pushing through. While the three displayed some vintage form, the team set alight some fireworks in the middle.

Rommel-firecracker-Pandey (85) plundered the Opposition in which he totally took to heart the ‘save your legs’ Seniors mantra and ran only 7 singles. 7 boundaries and 8 sixes later Rommel had had enough break between his smokos. We finished our innings with a lead of 186 with 25 overs to have a crack at the opposition.

Ben-sunkist-Waldron (3/15) got the ball talking straight away and claimed his first scalp off the very first delivery of the innings. The Opponents had decided to keep swinging their bat and some fine catching by Manu-superglue-Verma and Amith Ninan in the outfield saw quick wickets.

Shankar Ravi (1/32) and Amit Sen (1/26) saw the opponent’s tail wagging at 5/46 but one of their lower order bats started connecting. A lost ball at the death brought about the conclusion to the game.

We are taking lots of positives from this game with some confidence under our belt for our top-middle order. Having scored decent runs, we now need to score them in the right innings.

D1 Grade

WPHC 7/386 dec defeated Berowra 158 & 65 – declaring overnight, Dylan got an early breakthrough on the second ball of the innings to set the tone for the rest of our day. With good consistent bowling from Dylan (3/18) Roshan (2/25) Siby (2/19) and Roger (2/16), and being able to take wickets regularly left Berowra all out for 158.

In the second innings our bowlers were supported well with some good catching from Dave, Ian, Dylan and Agniva to have Berowra 9/27. Their last wicket partnership brought their total up to 65 before we got them all out giving us the outright win.

Some of the standout bowlers in the second innings was Roshan (4/9), Dylan (1/7) Dave (2/12) and Jude (3/10). Great win for the team putting us in 2nd place on the table and hopefully some good form moving forward.

D2 Grade

WPHC 178 lost to Kissing Point 6/190 – at the end of Day 1 Kissing Point were 0/24 following our innings of 178 runs on Day 1. Kissing Point resumed Day 2 playing in a very defensive manner needing a further 155 runs to win. That is about 2 runs an over for the remainder of the day.

The weather forecast had been rain all day Friday and most of Saturday. We never saw a drop of rain up at Foxglove South. Nine bowlers were employed throughout the match. We had high hopes of taking some early wickets but that didn’t eventuate. The first Opposition wicket fell on 59 with a clean bowled opener by Nirav Desai. Three more wickets fell at the 72,79 and 80 run mark with John Rose taking two of those wickets and Wanam Tamhankar the other.

However, things began to stall with the Opposition batters playing very defensively after they had lost 4 wickets by the 33rd over. Over the next 32 overs Kissing Point hit a further 66 runs or 2 an over without loss. Ben Kinchington then took a Jaffa of a wicket hitting the leg side bail and Wanamaker Tamhankar took the 6th wicket at the 164 run mark. Kissing Point hit their winning runs in their 75th over.

We paid a heavy price for losing 9 wickets for 59 runs in our first innings because of poor decisions in cutting off-side balls leading to catches mainly from top and bottom edges plus some dollies straight to fielders.

Our bowling was much better with 21 maidens from 76 overs. Best bowling was John Rose who took 2/23 off 20 overs and Wanam Tamhankar who took 2/29 off 11 overs. If we had batted more conservatively with a few more runs we might have had a different ending.

However, this match taught us two very valuable lessons in that a better selection of shots might have given us another 30 or 40 runs making all the difference and that dropped catches (there were 6) loses matches. If we learn anything from this it is that we have a better than even chance of being more than competitive against the two top teams.