Points Table

Standings after 7 Rounds are:

• A1 Grade – =3^rd (3^rd on quotient)
• A2 – 1^st
• B1:
  • Blue (Rick) – 8^th
  • Red (Gunny) – 3^rd
• B2 – 4^th
• C1 – =7^th (7^th on quotient)
• C2:
  • Blue (Fieds) – 1^st
  • Red (Indranil) – 5^th
• C3 – 2^nd
• D1 – 2^nd
• D2 – 5^th

Match Reports

A Grade 245 defeated ARL 175 –The Glade welcomed us back with open arms this week, fresh off our magnificent batting performance from the week prior.

With the new team shirts, we really looked the part as we headed out to the warm-up. Alex “Figjam” Robertson suggested we do a T drill, as he is a big fan of their relevance to an actual cricket match. Throws were left right and centre, there was no backing up, Fig yelled at someone for not getting the throws up – you could have thought we were in for a terrible, terrible day.

The duel omission of Mitchell “Blowy” Blow and Michael “Mobbo” Robertson paved the way for the triumphant return of Ashane “Ash” DeSilva and the debut of Cooper “Dr Harry” Cooper. We also had a change in the umpires, Tim Lees Dad joined Geoff “Des” Hasler at the crease meaning that Phil “Wu” Wurth had no one to share his burger with and Lichaaa was firmly crowned the “Thunder” on the field for the week.

As I begin to settle into a ball by ball summary of the days play, I am reminded of the feedback I have received over the length of these reports. All your feedback has been so warmly received by me, I write these reports for you – and your gratitude and support make it so very worthwhile. Please keep all suggestions, questions and positive comments coming to my team, wisden@bigpond.com.

Summary is that this week I will keep it short, sharp and to the point.

Tim “Buckets” Scholar and Dan “Whale” Costigan were the stars of the show with 4 and 5 wickets respectively. The bowling unit executed tight plans all day, bowled in partnerships and were rewarded with some great team wickets.

In between Wu’s chemistry with Geoff Hasler, Wu trying to ankle tap Whale whilst chasing for a ball, Wu claiming ball hadn’t crossed boundary as he retrieved from someone’s backyard, Wu carrying two ice packs around underneath his hat, Wu organising a romantic date to Rodriguez with Lichaaa, Wu dropping a catch in slow motion and Wu reminding us he is a liar not a cheater, it was a good day

Good luck to Bailey “Andrew” Miedler who sits his P Plate this week. Great reverse park for a learner into the Sporto car park.

 A2 Grade 6 dec./264 defeated St Colah 2/10 – a  delightfully pleasant day greeted all at Dural Park. Bowler nightwatchman, Fernie ‘Zinc’ Meikle finished his over, before Gandis ‘Lettuce’ Herzog settled into a protein-like spell of 11 overs, taking 2 vital wickets. Snumpty ‘Meat’ Smyth then put in an 11 over spell for the meat eaters, bamboozling the batsmen with an array of slower balls and slower slower balls, to take 2/25.

Fernie took another wicket, as Fat ‘Also Eats Meat’ Connell imposed himself on the game, catching more balls than Sir Elton John. Gandis came back on to exhaust all the vegetables in his system, taking the final 2 poles, to finish with 4/30. LMac ‘Eats Meat Too, But Sometimes Spills It On The Floor’ McBrien was brilliant behind the stumps, taking 2 catches.

St Colah were bowled out for 163, to give us a comfortable victory. A nice combination of meat and vegetables was on the menu.

B1 Blue (Rick) 72 lost to B1 Red (Gunny) 152 – on a beautiful day at the home of cricket, B1 Red showed up (well 9 of us did with 2 showing up after the start of play) keen to win the big derby.

The Blues continued on from 4/35 overnight, and we felt the first session was going to be a big one and determine the game. What proceeded to happen was 4 runs in the first 10 overs of the day and no wickets, not what we expected.

Justin ‘toolies’ Edwards (1/13 off 12) and Nathaniel ‘maiden’ Chidgey (1/3 off 9) bowled very tight line and lengths without reward, before Semonn ‘no appeal’ Oleksyn (1/4 off 4) and Aaron Hawkins (2/21 off 9) bowled with real heat to break through the middle order.

From here, Brent ‘as many wickets as runs’ Larkham cleaned up the tail (3/9 off 4.2) to see us to a win, ironically leaving the Blue’s a little red faced as they were bowled out for 72. This win further cements our spot early on in the season in the top 4.

From the Blue’s perspective, the boys served up a pretty ordinary batting display. While the The Reds bowled well the Blue’s didn’t value their wickets highly enough being skittled for 72. The only batsman of note being Hollywood who finished on 17*.

Finally, in an attempt to gain some pride back Gunny tried to steal Rick’s cones at the end of the game. Rick noticed and swiftly regained his status as the top dog, putting Gunny in his place who still has many lessons to learn on Alpha status.

B2 150 lost to St Ives 8 dec /204 – the Opposition resumed batting at 9/170 and put on 32 runs in 8 overs before declaring. A total of 203 was required with a minimum of 59 overs remaining.

Zac Morris(22) and Michael McGregor(21) got us off to a solid start before Macca was forced to retire due to injury. The score continued to tick along, but wickets continued to fall regularly to see us at 4/81.

Ruben Alexander (20) and Phil Hayes (46) put on a great 60 run partnership before Phil was dismissed. At 5/141 we headed into the last hour with 18 overs to chase down the total.

Unfortunately things didn’t go to plan. We lost the remaining wickets for just 9 runs to be all out for 150.

C1 3 dec 225 defeated Vs Hornsby 57 & 2/168 – having got 1st innings points last week we set ourselves 10 overs to increase our score from 2-168 to 3-225 in 10 overs and push for an outright.

Manu Verma (63) batted beautifully before getting out, Rommel Pandey (16no) & Nandu Ramesh (118no) kept the score ticking over nicely we lead by 168. Nandu’s innings was special, 17x4s and 1×6, some of his shots were delightful and created many headaches for the Hornsby fielders. Well done!

In reply all 7 bowlers toiled without much success, Hornsby Captain dispatched us all over the park to be 90no, best of the bowlers was Arjun Kumar (2-31 off 10), just wasn’t our day in the field, with lots of half chances. We play Castle Hill next game, onward & upward!

C2 Blue (Fieds) 7 dec /326 defeated Normanhurst-Warrawee 111 – a sunny blue sky on a lovely day can make even the most hard-nosed Captains soften up so Fieds had a change of heart and decided to bat on to give Matt Schwartzel (98*) a chance to score his ton – our 481^st .

So after Matt gave everyone a scare when he skied his 3^rd ball straight up in the air only to be dropped by the bowler, he brought up his ton with a hastily run 2 and we declared with much relief. Now time to bowl.

Jack Barry cleaned up one of the openers with a beauty, but we had to wait 15 overs for our second wicket, courtesy of a hot chance taken by Dan Schwartzel off the Chidge. Our target was never really in danger, so we were able to set attacking fields all day.

The introduction of Dave B to the attack made things happen at regular intervals. Doing his best Funky Miller impersonation (minus the blue hair), he took 3 wickets with his mediums, before reverting to his little offies for a further 3. He finished with 6/59 off 13 straight overs – a great birthday present for the new member of quinquagenarian club (…look it up). Jack finished with 2/11, and Dan, Matt & Stuey (Dizzy) all took 2 catches each.

So that leaves us in 1^st place at the halfway mark of the season, and we hope to get a few of our junior rep players back before Xmas to give us a very formidable look. Side note – we now have 7 members of the team who have scored 50’s already this season so competition for the top batting spots is going to be fierce (sorry – ‘fun’ – it’s just C2s…it’s just C2s…).

C2 Red (Indranil) 8/140 drew with Glenorie 161 – Reds had a straight forward equation, bat the day and secure the points. Grahame and Vinod started steadily against accurate but not penetrative bowling. But that equation started to go awry from the tenth over and top five again struggled to put together meaningful partnerships.

Ramil (28) held the innings together but fell just before tea. At 7/80 with a win still very possible Nick Duck and Nikki O’Meara set about making the target, but with the dismissal of the Duck with 50 still to get it, it became a game of survival which Nikki and Amit accomplished with great a plumb (and much to the delight of Shanker).. we fell 20 runs short of the target but achieved a very rewarding result…

C3 5 dec /293 defeated Kissing Point 93 – declaring on our overnight score we knew we could win this one if we held our chances and bowled well. (They had scored 300 in their previous 2 day match).

Things got off to an awesome start with Paul and Rohan bowling an outstanding opening spell creating fantastic pressure with Vinks picking up their opener with his first ball!

They continued in tandem to hold the opposition to 2/19 after 12 overs with Rohan collecting his first wicket dismissing the other obstinate opener. Comparisons to the great opening bowling partnerships of the past like Lillee and Thompson, McGrath and Gillespie may be a stretch, but after a fantastic 9 over spell, Paul probably felt about as old as D K Lillee! (Young ‘uns look him up on YouTube! he was a pretty decent fast bowler!)

Knowing that KP have a number of capable batsmen, the pressure continued as Dylan and then Will knocked off another two of their top bats to have them 4/43 at drinks.

Will’s leg spin has been a game changer these last few games and his knack of picking up top order batsmen has been invaluable, he collected his second scalp with a big turning leggie that went straight through a left hander hopelessly attempting to cut the wrong ball.

S K Warne would be proud! (again, look him up on YouTube, he was a fairly decent spinner!).

Knowing that the fat lady hadn’t yet sung, we continued to work hard for our wickets, but great fielding support with sharp catches from Rosco, Sam, Rohan and John made sure we capitalised on our opportunities.

Sam replaced Will with more leggies but of a slightly different style and collected himself a wicket with a great c&b. After being kind to a couple of Opposition youngsters who were filling in, Buzz decided enough was enough and Rohan was brought back into the attack to bowl one of the quickest spells we’ve seen this season! He collected the final two wickets to ensure an outstanding win, take the six points and leapfrog KP into 2nd place on the ladder.

Wickets were shared amongst Rohan 3/23, Will 2/16, Dylan 2/5, Paul 1/18 and Sam 1/9.

To trounce a very capable Opposition by such a margin (200 runs, just in case you hadn’t read the score line!) shows just how much capability this side has, and there’s still players in the shed who haven’t yet had their day to contribute!

Still a very long way to go in the season, but such promising signs from this group of players!

D1 147 defeated Glenorie 120 – we arrived at Arcadia to see the long grass mowed and with 136 runs on the board, we planned to bat for 7 or 8 overs and hope to get close to 160 and declare.

The team was all out for 147 and used up 7 overs, so we had 60 overs minimum to take the 10 wickets which we believed we needed if we could bowl accurately.

Our turn to bowl and our opening pair of bowlers seemed a little off from the get go with the narrow Arcadia strip which resulted in a change of ends and it was Josh Elliot (3/12 off 15.1) who captured the first and only wicket before the 20 over drinks break with a fine sharp catch to keep Aden Hanich.

Glenorie being 1/32 and with only just 100 more runs to defend things were looking a little dicey until the introduction of Connor Mayoh (5/14 off 12) who turned the game on 2 occasions in the afternoon. Connor first took the edge of the remaining opening batsman caught by Aden and followed it up by clean bowling 2 good batsman, Glenorie reeling at 4/37 just before tea.

Marcus Exton (1/14 off 4) then got the next wicket brilliantly caught by leaping Dave Disco Larkham and the game seemed ours. Glenorie kept grinding their way and batted smartly while we dropped a few catches, balls just landing wide of fieldsman and they were up to 5/100 with around 22 overs to play needing only 48 more.

Quan (1/3 off 3) came on for his second spell after helping openers change ends earlier and was able to break the partnership…(well let’s just say the fruit was caught by Marcus Exton at mid-wicket).

With 18 overs to go in last hour minimum we went back to Connor Mayoh and Josh Elliot who took the last 4 wickets, 2 a piece all bowled to finish the Glenorie innings with 7 overs to spare.

It was pleasing that we were able to win a game when we underperformed with the bat, ground conditions were against us and we were able to give 9 players a bowl which bodes well for the rest of our season. Now for the toughest test against top of the table Kissing Point next game with Papa Digs Captaining..(no pressure mate).

Finally, a special mention to D2 Skipper, Captain Mike who filled in for us this match. Thanks Captain Mike!

D2 111 & 1/58 lost to Kenthurst 7 dec 124 – match report to follow.