Points Table

Standings after 6 Rounds are:

• A1 Grade – =4^th (4^th on quotient)
• A2 – =1^st (1^st on quotient)
• B1:
  • Blue (Rick) – 8^th
  • Red (Gunny) – 3^rd
• B2 – =3^rd (3^rd on quotient)
• C1 – =7^th (7^th on quotient)
• C2:
  • Blue (Fieds) – 1^st
  • Red (Indranil) – 5^th
• C3 – 3^rd
• D1 – 3^rd
• D2 – 5^th

Match Reports

A Grade 245 Vs ARL 0/15 – your friendly journalist won’t be able to write his usual dazzling report as he is currently multiple, multiple, multiple beers deep. However as a summary, Josh Mathias ‘Yo-yo’ got a 108, our 478^th ton, on a difficult track at The Glade and Mobbo got a classy 50. A highlight was seeing Phil’s family abseil down the cliff at The Glade and our number one ticket holder wasn’t happy that ARLs close in fielders weren’t wearing helmets. A great day’s play.

 A2 Grade 6/264 Vs St Colah 2/10 – terrible conditions greeted players on the M1, as a certain Captain that lives on the Central Coast did not make the toss. I hope the M1 is never closed again. It was as tragic as a vegan accidentally feasting on steak.

Without our normal toss loser, Fernie ‘Where’s My Blazer’ Meikle lost the toss, and we were asked to bat.

At 5/76, things weren’t going our way, but it was ok, cause we had Effie ‘Lap Dancer’ Banner at the crease. He and Keats ‘23’ Keating put on 62 for the 6th wicket, before 23 was dismissed for 23. Quite coincidental indeed. The game then swung our way, as Effie was joined by Snumpty ‘Legside’ Smyth, in what would be a more fruitful partnership than Milli Vanilli, as the pair put on an unbeaten 126 off 25 overs, with Effie being the star of the day, with his maiden ton in the erection grade, finishing on 123* – our 479^th ton.

Effie batted as positively as a Ben Cousens drug sample, with Snumpty cutting his way to 58*, to allow us to Graeme Smith declare at 6/264, with 13 minutes to bowl.

Cambo ‘Man Bun’ McBrien got us up and about in the 4th over, as their opener chipped to Pear ‘Chalk’ Partridge on the legside, to have St Colah 1 fa. In an inspirational move by ‘day Captain’ Fernie, he brought himself on in the last over of the day, to take a wicket off his first ball, and pass his captain’s ticket test. Congratulations. St Colah are 2/10.

The lesson we learnt today was that it doesn’t matter if you have tiny calf muscle. Cricket is all about other muscles other than your calves.

B1 Blue (Rick) 4/35 Vs B1 Red (Gunny) 152 – Greenway Park was the scene for the B1 derby between the Blues and the Reds. Reds skipper Gunny tried to assert his alpha status with a lame attempt of sitting in Blues Skipper Flairs spot. The matter was addressed quickly and the natural order of things was resumed with Flair assuming alpha status and reclaiming his spot.

The toss was won by Flair who chose to bowl on a slightly overcast and cloudy afternoon.

The Reds got off to good start despite good bowling from Jobbie and Flooky. Changes were made but at the drinks break the Reds were 0/42. The Reds resumed well after drinks and got to 0/60 before Flair decided to bring himself on and turned back the clock with some medium pace artistry.

He immediately removed Reds skipper Gunny to the delight of the assembled crowd. Bowling in tandem with Hollywood the screws were kept on the Reds and a further 5 wickets went down for 38 runs. The Reds went to the tea break at 6/122 and the game in the balance. After the break two wickets fell quickly to Raffa and the Reds were 8/124. A couple of partnerships ensued and the Reds managed to get to 152 all out.

Best of the bowling Flair 4/8 (off 9), Raffa 2/16 (6), Ollie 1/24 (4), Flooky 1/38 (13) and Hollywood 1/38 (12.4).

The Blues had about 75 minutes to bat. The Reds applied plenty of pressure and bowled and fielded well, taking some early wickets.

Kyle “Schoolies, what’s that?” Townsend and Justin “Did you know I can bat” Edwards got an early wicket each to have the blues on the ropes early. We finished the day with the Blues 4/35, evenly poised heading into the 2nd day with Nathaniel ‘I bat 11’ Chidgey picking up the 4^th wicket

B2 Vs St Ives 9/170 – we won the toss and elected to bowl on a lush Glenhaven. Dean Carlin bowled a great opening spell without luck. Prats Datar (2/20) got the important breakthrough in a spell that had the batsmen in all sorts. Prats had the ball on a string and worked hard for his two wickets.

At 4/60 we were on top, but the Oppositions 5th wicket partnership dragged the score to 4/129. Phil Hayes broke the partnership with a great run out, firing a rocket from mid-on to the strikers end, knocking over the stumps with a direct hit.

Wickets continued to fall with Dean Carlin finally getting his reward to finish 1/38 from 20 overs. Ryan Loveridge (1/27) and Ryan Gunn (1/11) picked up wickets in the final 10 overs of the day.

C1 2/165 Vs Hornsby 57 – Hornsby won the toss and elected to bat, what proceeded was very encouraging, with the ball it was the best spell of bowling I’ve seen in ages.

Sam Hando (3-25 off 10) & Napier Gryst (3-16 off 7), opened the bowling and had reduced the top order to 6-36, Nandu Ramesh (3-15 off 6) & Aseem Goswami (1-4 off 3) finished off their innings all out 60.

In reply we lost Richard Hughes (14) & Arjun Kumar (0), 2-16 then got to stumps 2-165 with Manu Verma (50no) & Nandu Ramesh (93no) an outstanding partnership, with a lead of over 100 with maximum points on offer with a quick declaration next week.

C2 Blue (Fieds) 7/322 Vs Normanhurst-Warrawee – we finally won a toss and batted on a fast looking Campbell Park. We expected to post a big total on a belter, but we somehow managed to find ourselves in early trouble.

From 2/30 Pratah, returning from a broken finger, was joined by Feathers, and the pair righted our wobbly start, as Pratah posted a well made 52. Things teetered again as Pratah’s dismissal triggered a mini collapse as we found ourselves in dangerous territory at 5/116 after 35 overs approaching tea.  250 was looking a par score today, so we had lots of work to do get give us something reasonable to defend.

After the break, Feathers, who was relishing his promotion to number 4 (having burgled in the number 6/7 position for too many years now), was joined by wicket-keeper Matt Schwartzel and together they set about shoring up the innings. They put on 140 together before Feathers was out for a brilliant 118 – our 480^th ton.

Matt then batted well with the lower order and after reaching the mid-80s with an innings of classical shots mostly along the carpet, was given the instruction that he had 20 mins until stumps to register his maiden century, as we weren’t batting on into day 2. He managed to get on strike for the final 4 balls on 98 no, but after a number of swings & misses, was left hanging with no further addition.

Will we bat on next week or will we do a Bill Lawry and leave him stranded? I’ve always loved Bill….

C2 Red (Indranil) Vs Glenorie 161 – Reds lost the toss and Glenorie chose to bat. Amit (1/28) and Nikki (3/42) got us off to a steady start with Nikki picking up the first wicket in the 6th over.

Just prior to the first drinks break Shankar entered the attack and wickets fell, 2 to Shankar and 2 to Nikki with both of Nikki wickets ably caught by Shankar. It was very much the Shankar Ravi show prior to tea, with Glenorie 5/86. The 6th wicket went to Sreeni (1/13), the afternoon then meandered as Glenorie struggled to score runs and we couldn’t deliver the killer blow.

Ravi (5/46) prized out 3 of the last four and we finish the day in the last over before stumps. Not a huge total but will need to be on our game to secure the points.

C3 5/293 Vs Kissing Point – after three good wins on the trot, this match was set to be an important one matching up with KP who are currently running 2nd by just two points to our West Penno side in 3rd.

Winning the toss (Yes, not fake news!) Buzz decided to have a bat on an indifferent Aluba Oval that was lightening fast in a couple of areas, but boggy and desperately slow in others.

After losing an early wicket, Patto and Xander combined to wear down a nagging attack to post an invaluable 2nd wicket partnership of 84 ensuring the opposition spirits were down before Patto fell just before tea with a continuation of his good form this season having made 45. (and he said he wasn’t going to play cricket this year!)

John Rose joined Xander and accelerated the scoring with these two adding a further 71 before Xander (who hit his first ever six with a thumping shot over mid wicket!) finally fell for an excellent 57. It’s been great to see just how much he has enjoyed his batting these last few games and the results speak for themselves.

A rapid partnership from Brent and Rosey ended in calamity when Brent was run out as both batsmen stood in the middle of the pitch thinking a ball had gone for four (which hadn’t! The fielder had the thrown it in to have Brent unfortunately run out!). Rosey continued on though and played an attacking innings, punishing the bad ball and scoring all around the ground for an excellent 69.

Buzz then joined Dylan and with a dozen overs left in the day, they formed an aggressive partnership and sensibly took advantage of the bad balls and tired fielders to rack up an unbeaten partnership of 88 to take the team score to just shy of 300. Dylan with great shot selection hitting 45* and Buzz 41*.

With the Opposition full of cagey old batsmen, we will give ourselves the full 70 overs next week and back our strong bowling attack to knock them over for another win.

D1 8/136 Vs Glenorie – the day got off to a good start with Steve “Quan Daddy” Quanborough winning the toss and electing to bat due to having Gautam (leading run scorer for D1), and opener Papa Diggers only available for week 1.

He started to regret his choice after a few overs as Papa Diggers went down early after playing a cut shot straight to the man at point. Although it was time for our run machine Gauto to step up once again and revive the innings, after knocking a quick two runs he finally met his downfall after a blisteringly slow ball swung outside his bat and knocked the off stump back.

It was time for the Hanich boys to make an impact and form a nice partnership, after only the second ball Rob fell to the same fate as the previously immortal Gautam, as another nice out swinging ball curled pass his bat and clipped the off stump to end his innings.

The innings was looking grim as we were down 3-5, our fill in Captain Steve Q needed to save the innings, and so we started preparing to bowl. However, a brilliant partnership of 67 runs between Aden and Steve saw us gain control of the match and got us getting close to passing 100. After a wonderful innings of precision, Aden fell for 19 after being caught, another great innings proving he’s the most skilled Hanich.

Steve had a wonderful Captains knock and was a boundary away from his second ever 50, he attempted the big 6 to bring up his milestone to add to another one of his hundred repetitive stories, but failed to do so and was caught on 47, another great knock for the in form batsman.

Dave and Siby moved into the middle order and forgot that you need to call for runs, which lead to Siby being dismissed for a well-played first ball duck.

After having the pads on for 3 hours to say he was disappointed is a gross understatement. Dave followed shortly after a well played defensive innings. This meant it was time for the man himself, Rocket Roshan to have a quick aggressive cameo. He rocketed away to 34 after smacking the bowler to no man’s land every ball, he was eventually caught which saw the remaining two batsmen defend the last two overs of the day. Amith took the last over and saw us 8 wickets down for 136 runs.

Another great comeback from the team, looking to take it further next week with Josh ready to bat and bowl and is fired up after having to score all day for 76 overs.

D2 111 Vs Kenthurst 2/42 – the day started out with a loss in the toss due to the Kenthurst Captain having to call the toss. They chose to bowl.

The opening batsmen for West Pennant Hills, Luke Christensen and Thiru Pukharzenthi went to on the pitch at 1:00pm. The first ball of the innings fatally injured Luke as it hit him in the eye. He had to retire as he could not see very well.

The team had a collapse until Praneel got in. Him and Roger friend lasted until a little before tea. Praneel was unfortunately ran out due to being indecisive about the run. Parin Pillamarri entered the pitch with the wicket of Praneel Singh falling.

Roger later got caught at short cover. Waman Thamhanker entered the pitch when the team was 8 down. Parin and Waman lasted for an hour as a partnership before Parin got bowled by a excellent ball from Andrew Williams.

The West Pennant hills team were all out of 111 which meant that we had to ball for 19 overs. Waman Thamhankar took a catch while he was bowling. Praneel later got an LBW which made the Kenthurst team lose their opening batsmen. The day concluded with Kenthurst being on 2/42.