A1 Grade

WPHC 9/161 lost to St Ives 9/162 – we won the toss and elected to bat. The innings started slowly but our goal of not losing early wickets was achieved. The innings built and we got to 161 with some bigger hitting and quick running towards the end. Special mention to Jamakian (44) and Fat with 25. Everyone chipped in at times.

We started bowling / fielding with a bang as Riley Miedler had two batsmen in a row plum LBW. The umpire pretty much appealed with us.

The middle session  was frustrating as balls seemed to go everywhere we didn’t want them to, similar to a Phil Wurth story.

We bowled well once again in the last 10 overs, restricting runs and getting wickets. However, annoyingly, we lost on the 2^nd last ball of the day. The Miedler’s were dangerous together as Bailey and riley chipped in with the most wickets. It was a gutsy effort and JP announced that we will go through undefeated for the rest of the season.

A2 Grade

WPHC Red (Simon) 2/144 defeated WPHC Blue (Rick) 9/141 – for reference:

• Rowan Keating = 23
• Chris Williamson = Willy
• Alex Turner = Hooch
• Jules Raffel = Sean Anthony
• Rick Turner = The Flair
• Nick Starr = Ivan
• Jackson Preedy = The Preedofile
• Taki Manolelis = Taki Manolelis
• Justin Edwards = Clive
• Peter Flook = Slender

We turned up to Greenway Park for the WPH derby with both skippers (Blue – Flair and Red – Snumpty) unbackable $1.05 favourites to lose the toss. Resplendent in blazers (bad idea, god it was hot in those things) Flair called correctly, rejoicing the coin toss win, he had no hesitation in electing to bat. Snumpty had the last laugh though as he had put $5k on himself to lose the toss. You couldn’t wipe the smile off his face. It’s the only time you’ll see a skipper lose the toss on a 35 degree day, get sent into the field and be happy about it.

The Reds started out of the blocks quickly grabbing 2 poles (Tux and Hooch) in the first over (2/0). We lost a few more wickets over the next 10 overs or so (Hedgehog, Keats and Jobbie) and we up against it at 5/36 after 14 overs. Then began a lower order fightback from Willy, Flair and The Greek Messiah (Taki Manolelis). Over the remainder of the innings we grafted out 9/141. Best of the batting The Greek Messiah 39*, Flair 28, Jobbie 14, Willy 13.

For the Blues, Ankit “Nicole Kitman” Grover started us off beautifully with 2 wickets in the first over by dismissing two of the players he was traded for in pre-season. He followed it with a loud call of “Thanks Champ!” and immediately asserted himself as the Alpha. Wickets then fell and backs went out with regularity throughout the day. Fish “Daniel” Cardigan chipped in with like 4 catches…I don’t know it, was very hot and my back hurt a lot. I did take a mysterious pill out of Sir Of’s kit which was meant to be Voltaren, I may have taken the wrong tablets because I’ve had a weird side effect. No need for alarms but if it hasn’t gone down in about 4 hours I’ll need someone to take me to the hospital.

With bat in hand, the Red’s runs were scored and we the boys pretty comfortably in the end. It can only be assumed that most of the ladies on the side line were considering leaving their respective partners as Michael “Little Fig” Robertson and Stanton Tam “Pon” soaked up the red. Despite many warnings many of the women spent a lot of time talking to Volc “Volc” Volc and we can only assume he will be listed as the reason for the separation of Josh “fkyr” Banner and his google search history. We ended up chasing it 8 down and are looking forward to belting ARL everywhere in early January.

B1 Grade

WPHC 69 lost to St Ives 85 – match Report to follow.

B2 Grade

WPHC Red (Rob) 7/233 defeated WPHC Blue (Tim) – Wortho won the toss and sent the Reds into bat. After losing an early wicket Ian Paterson (17) made his long awaited return from injury. Ian joined Zac Morris (26) at the crease and the pair began to boost the run rate. Andrew Morris (94) and Zac kept the runs flowing before Zac was dismissed. Andrew and Brent Larkham (57) batted through hot conditions to put on a 126 run partnership. The boys opened up with 6 overs remaining and plenty of wickets in hand. We managed to put on 233 runs at Dural Park and gave ourselves a shot at defending our total.

Aaron Hawkins (2/33 from 7) got the early breakthrough in the 3rd over and building pressure on the Blues. All the bowlers kept the pressure on, making the batsmen work for their runs. The bowlers were well support by some great efforts in the field and sharp keeping by Ryan Gunn. Dean Carlin(1/26 from 7), Rob Knapman(3/23 from 8) and Brent Larkham(1/12 from 4) were all amongst the wickets.

Best of Blue bowlers were Sam Hando (2/34 off 8), Jayson Smart (2/17 off 4), Ollie Maybury (2/55 off 7). In reply early consistent wickets falling reducing Blue to 5/58 however some character building from the lower order pushed our score to 8/174

Matt Rashleigh 35, Nick Duck 34, Nikki Omeara 31no & Jayson Smart 19. Wishing all our teams a Merry Christmas and a Happy safe New Year. Blue team onward and upward!

C1 Grade

WPHC 143 lost to St Ives 152 – we lost the toss and not surprisingly were sent into field first on a very hot afternoon. Ryan Loveridge and Richard Makin opened bowling with good pressure on the openers. Richard got the early breakthrough with peach of a delivery knocking down left handed opener’s stumps. We got second breakthrough to a good catch off Richard’s bowling and St. Ives were 3/55 after 19 overs.

Rest of the bowlers in Nandu Ramesh, Ishaan Singh, Alex Chidgey and Everest Matrose bowled good line/lengths. St. Ives batsmen kept scoring rate constant with odd boundary coming at times. Best in bowling was Richard 4/25, Ryan 1/30, Nandu 1/10, Ishaan 1/27 and Everest 1/34.

A number of dropped catches did not help our cause. A score of 8/151 in the end was very much chasable.

Our chase did not start that well with one of the openers getting out in very first over. Asees Rajput and Nandu Ramesh stabilised innings for a while before Asees was out. We lost 3^rd wicket in the 18^th over but our score at drinks break was on par with the opposition at 3/54. After Tarun (25) was out trying to keep up with the score rate, Richard Hughes and Nathan Fathers played some beautiful shots all around the ground.

Nathan was out LBW and Ishaan joined Richard. Quick scoring had helped us requiring 51 off last 10 overs with 5 wickets in hand. After this we had about 3-4 overs where we could not score and pressure started to build. Unfortunately we could not keep up with the required 7/8 runs per over in the last 6 overs and lost wickets regularly at one end. Richard Hughes finished with 54*.

A close loss in the end.

C2 Grade

WPHC 9/227 lost to St Ives 3/248 – St Ives batted first and we did not bowl to our potential, managed only one maiden in the 40 overs.

Pick of the bowlers was Dave B. who bowled 8 straight taking 1/28. Gian 1/43 and Tanay 1/44 each picked up a wicket and bowled with good pace. The last 10 overs cost us dearly as the St Ives upped the ante and ultimately posted a score just out of our reach.

Our turn to bat and despite losing 2 early wickets we were always in the hunt. Peter gave the innings momentum with a quick 37 but it was Jono Moran who batted beyond his years to compile 58 and his partnership with Gian who made 51 that kept us very much in the game. Cameos from Cody and Scott got us close. Thanks to twelfth man George for being there and enabling us to rotate the fielders.

C3 Grade

WPHC 178 lost to St Ives 7/202 – 41 degrees at Howson Oval and only one thought in all players mind is to win the toss and bat first. But no luck again and St Ives did not hesitate to have us field first up.

It was a game 3 Vs 4 in the leader board and a must win for both sides.

We struggled to get early breaks but with some good patient bowling from Ben Waldron and Amitava Sen we managed to get the openers back at the end of 10 overs with score 2/51. Some more wickets were taken quickly by Sreeni Pillamarri and Shankar Ravi and at one stage after 24 overs St Ives was in a bit of trouble at 5/97.

From there on missed chances and tired fielding display took them to 7/202. Top bowling performances were from Ben Waldron 1/44, Amitava Sen 2/43, Shankar Ravi 1/32, Sreeni P 2/15 and Amith Ninan 1/34.

We changed the batting order and opened with Vishal and Peza but did not work out as per plan.

Then a 70 run partnership for 3^rd wicket followed between Manu Verma 72* and Ramil De Silva 52 which took the game to the Opposition. Wickets fell at intervals including 2 run outs but Manu continued to show aggression till the end and scoring his maiden 50 for the season. It was a close game at the end losing the final wicket in the 38^th over leaving us behind by 24 runs.

We will be back after holidays against KP and need to be at our best to topple the leader board toppers. Wish all Club players and families Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

D1 Grade

WPHC 7/205 defeated Kissing Point 9/119 – we won the toss yet again and chose to bat in hot conditions.

A few cameos from Connor, Aden and Ian who all ended up with 19 got us out to 100 runs within the first 27 overs, but at the expense of being 4 wickets down. Steve (31) had a supportive innings whilst scoring a few runs of his own. Steve and Dylan put on a 60 run partnership, and with a little help from the tail end, Dylan was able to score 78* at a quick scoring rate. We finished the innings at 7/205 after putting on 100 runs in the last 13 overs.

The drop in temperature and shade was welcomed by us as we took the field. Early wickets from Dylan (1/5), David (1/24) and Darcy (2/23) meant Kissing Point were 4/45 after just 12 overs. Tight bowling from Connor (3/5) and Roger (2/17) made sure that Kissing Point had no chance of a comeback. The number 11 of Kissing Point retiring hurt meant the game was over with West Pennant Hills winning by a comfortable margin of 86 runs.

D2 Grade

WPHC 171 defeated Kenthurst 117 – we were lucky enough that the Opposition lost the toss and we batted first in this one day match at Greenup Park. The temperature at 1pm was close to 40 degrees.

We lost 4 wickets for 34 runs after 11 overs through two ill-advised run outs and 2 bowled out batters. Luke Christensen and Brent Van Wck then came to the crease as fifth and sixth batters hitting 36 and 34 to take us to 6 wickets for 111 runs after 28 overs.

Parin Pillamarri, Agni Sen and Simon Rahmani as tailenders managed to cobble another 30 very valuable runs between them before we were bowled out in the 39th over. However, with the heat affecting the bowling side another 27 sundries were added to our score giving us a total of 171 runs.

Kenthurst started their innings at 3.30 pm. John Rose took the first wicket in his first over with a superb catch off his own bowling. There then occurred a most unusual second wicket. Ben Kinchington bowled a sharply rising ball which caught the batter on the upper shaft of his bat where his hands were gripping it. The batter by jumping into the air dislodged his cap off his head which then proceeded to fall backwards onto the stumps knocking off a bail.

This batter was thus out for 5 runs and on the last occasion we played Kenthurst he had managed to hit 150 runs. So a very fortunate event that was most beneficial to us. Kenthurst were bowled out for 117 runs in the 31st over of their innings.

John Rose took 4 for 14 off 6 overs and Ben Kinchington managed 3 for 25 off 7 overs. Agni Sen, Wanam Tamhankar and Parin Pillamarri each took a wicket apiece. A great way to finish the year 2017.