Our Women High Achievers

West Penno has a record 2^nd to no other Community Club in Australia in promoting and developing Women’s cricket – going way back to 1996/97 when we entered our first Girls Teams. We also have some of highest achieving Women in World & Australian cricket. How about this latest achievement:

On Wednesday (24^th February) Maddie Jones, a BlowFly Cricket Co-captain and Junior Blaster’s Coach won the following major Awards for the Australian Good Sports Awards:

• NSW Club Champion Winner, and;
• Australian Club Champion Runner-up

Add to this:

• Danielle Chivers (U17 Girls, Head Junior Blasters Coach & Academy Coach) is the current winner of the NSW and Australian Community Youth Leader awarded by Cricket Austalia
• Lisa Sthalekar was inducted 2 weeks ago into the Australian Cricket Hall of fame

Add to this again, Denise Annetts, is a multi World record holder + 899 Girls Registrations since 1996 and 11 Female Managers & Coaches + 9 high achieving women on our Junior and Executive Committees.

Record looming

There are records and there are records. We have one that is one of those extra special ones looming. A few weeks ago we did a story on those players who were going to give long-term Club records a nudge.

One of those players was Michael Richards (A1, pictured right, with Andrew Fiedler). Well, last week he just keeps raising the bar when he took 5/5 from an amazing 8 overs. Lichaaa has now taken 27 wickets at 6.37 in a shortened season! With games against the Minor Premier, Semi Final and potentially Final coming up maintaining this level of achievement is going to be tough but get a load of what records he is on the cusp of breaking:

• The Club A1 Grade bowling average record is 7.24 by Sol Tomlinson in 2014/15
• The Association A1 record is 6.57 taken by Graeme Bender in 1976/77. Graeme also took just over 700 x A1 Grade wickets so Michael is already in the stratosphere of elite performance

When Teamed with Cam McBrien who has also had an amazing season with 18 wickets @ 8.8, it is no surprise that the A1 Boys who have the best attack in A1, are in the Semi’s and will be pushing for a spot in the Grand Final.

Brothers in Arms

While on C4 Grade, the Fullerton brothers (Alistair – picturd & Luke) also set one of those Club and Association records in their record breaking partnership. They are the only the 3^rd set of brothers to hold an Association partnership record.

To put this in context, the Association started in 1920/21. There are 10 x partnership records in each Grade over 10 Grades (A1 to D2) – 100 potential combinations of players over 100 years.

So for brothers to set a record like this is pretty special. It is even more special for 2 of the 3 brothers to be from West Penno. For info, the other set of WPHC Brothers to hold a record is by the Bellamy brothers. They put on 175* for the 8^th wicket in B1 Grade way back in 1947/48.

What a better segue into other musical interlude than a song by the Bellamy Brothers – here

BBL Trophy comes to West Penno

The BBL Trophy, won by the Sydney Sixers made an appearance at our Blowfly Cricket centre on Friday night at Edward Bennett Oval.

This Trophy is valued at $15,000 and is fantastic to have it come along and be part of our Community. Checkout the Blowfly Cricket Gallery to see all the photos from Friday night – here

Reelin in the years

First up, our theme music for this section – here

This week we profile one of our long-termers who is getting rave reviews in the B1 Match Reports for his ‘buns’ of all things. I reckon that there must be a secret Bromance but with Chris recently engaged to be married we won’t go down this path.

Who else but Chris Williamson (B1 Red). ‘Willy’ played Juniors with us and debuted in Seniors way back in 2004/05. He has since scored 3,312 runs and taken 208 wickets bowling his wily spinners – the 37^th highest wicket taker in our 90 year history!

Chris’s greatest achievement though is the Association record C2 Grade 1^st wicket partnership of 333 back on 5^th January 2010 at Holland Road.

Chris is one of those rocks who just sets anchor and scores build around him. In this game he scored 76 and his partner, Russel Ingram scored 223. Refer to the photo: Chris (left) with Russel after their amazing innings.

A bit about this innings by Russel. It included:

• 32 x 4 and 9 x 6’s – 182 runs in boundaries – a Club record
• It was our 2^nd highest ever score

With marriage looming and baby Williamson’s no doubt on the way, we can see a new Junior Blaster and a Father / Son / Daughter combination in Seniors down the track.

Space Cadet

Our theme music first for this significant achievement – here

We haven’t had a Space Cadet for a while and being such a prestigious Award it is something to aspire to. This week we had another strong contender for Space Cadet of the Year – Lachlan Edwards (D1 Red & U17 White).

The photo shows Lachie ready to bat in case a wicket fell. The only problem with this is that Lachie was listed to bat at 5 and we were only 1 wicket down. As it turned out he had to wait about 25 overs to bat.

The most amazing thing is that the score book actually balanced.

One man bands

Adam van Saarloos (C2 Red) had one of those rare days. Going into the match, he had never scored a 50. After the Team crashed to 5/16 Adam belted a personal best of 62 out of a Team total of 100 runs. You don’t have to be Einstein to work out that this is 62% of the total score.

This just happens to be the 8^th highest share of total runs scored by a player in Seniors in our history. It is interesting to see how this ranks in our history:

1. Wally Howard (B1) Vs Perseverance @ Campbell Park – Grand Final in 1967/68. We were all out for 4 and Wally Howard scored the only scoring shot – a boundary. This is 100% of the total score.
2. Glenn O’Connor (C3 Blue Vs WPHC Red 31/10/2010 @ Campbell Park). In a team total of 191 Glenn belted 145 – 75.9% of the team total
3. Daniel Anderson (D2 as a 13 year old Vs Kenthurst at Holland Road Oval on 20^th December 2008, scored 81* out of an innings team total of 112 (72.3% of the total score).
4. Jason Goddard (C1 Vs Galston-Glenorie @ Cheltenham Oval 14/2/2015) – scored 78 out of a Team total of 119 – 65.5% of the total
5. Greg Fiedler (C1 Vs St Ives at Thornleigh – 23/10/2004) Greg, one of our greats, scored 95 out of a team total of 146 – 65% of the teams total
6. Brent Larkham (B2 Vs Lankan Islanders @ Annangrove Park – 4/11/2017) scored 200* of a Team total of 5/313 – 63.9% of the declared Team total
7. Michael Robertson (A2 Vs Kenthurst Upper Hills 5/11/2016 @ Kenthurst Park) scored 150* out of a Team total of 238 – 63.0% of the Team total
8. Adam’s score of 62 out of 100 is 62% of the Team total.

Commitment

There is something about good players that separates them from the rest – commitment and not to have your concentration broken. This is shown in truck loads in this photo of Todd Hutchinson (B1 Red). To quote Simon Smyth:

“Todd ‘Hutcho Man’ Hutchinson has been a star with the ball for B1 Red. After taking 6 fa today, he asked the boundary riders for a helmet, as he was fielding at silly mid-on.

 Enter Jemma ‘Mrs Hutcho Man’ Hutchinson, who under strict orders, was asked to deliver the helmet with a kiss in the cheek, to congratulate her man on his wickets.

 Look at Hutcho Man pulling away, to leave his bride disappointed…. $2 Hutcho Man.”

“The ball went that way”

What do you do in a top of the table clash when an Opposition player is motoring towards 200 with lots of time and overs to go? You go to your best bowler.

Enter Rob Knapman (Skipper B1 Blue – pictured right with Steve Quanborough) who is 2^nd in the Association B2 bowling ranks. Showing tactical genius this is exactly what Rob did with the over, taking over 20 minutes to bowl. The only problem is that it went for a lot and included 3 lost balls at Greenway Oval of all places.

Rob perfected each ball and each one went further over the boundary and further down Shepherds Drive. When the boys had no idea where the last ball went someone who parked over 100 metres away was almost collected. When the boys jumped the fence, something they were becoming skilled at, the bloke pointed down Shepherds Drive and said, ‘the ball went that way’ – still rolling down the hill and probably at Pennant Hills by now.