Anecdotes – 28 March 2021
A debut to remember – Humm Big Moment
Aiman Hasan (U10 Purple) was playing his first ever cricket game on Sat 24 Oct 2020. Not only did Aiman make his debut as Captain but he also won his first ever toss. In our Club, winning a toss already marks him as being special!
After 6 overs, Aiman came on to bowl and got a wicket, clean bowled, middle stump with the first ever ball he bowled in any game of cricket.
A video of this special moment was taken and sent in to the ‘Humm Big Moment’ contest. Humm is an on-line Buy Now Pay Later business. Not only did Aiman win this contest but he won $1,000 for our Club for being the best ‘Big Moment’ in the competition.
Well done Aiman!
Juniors Club Championship
We mentioned in the Club News that our Juniors (mixed) won the Club Championship Award. This is the first time since 2008/09.
As a bit of history, between 2002/03 and 2008/09 we won the Club Championship 6 times in 7 years and this resulted in a change in qualification criteria that significantly limited large Clubs from winning. Effectively, smaller Clubs with good performances will invariably score more points than large Clubs with a spread of results especially where a ‘Participation over Results’ policy applies.
This caps off an amazing season where our Club and Club Members have won significant National and State Awards. We will give a summary of these next week to recap a great season.
Cricket Australia video opportunity
Cricket Australia has come to us via CNSW to host a cricket coaching skills and activities filming day to go on their coaching website as a national resource for Junior coaches, Australia wide, to access new training ideas and coaching methods.
The session will be in the 2nd week of the April School holidays on Thursday the 15th of April.
This will be a great opportunity for the 14 boys & girls who will be participating along with our Coaches – Hazza Norrell and Danielle Chivers.
The reason we were chosen by CA?
Our Club is well known as an inclusive Club that provides cricket for Boys, Girls, people with Disability and traditional Men’s cricket. One of our Volunteers, Danielle Chivers, is also the current winner of the Cricket Australia ‘Young Community Leader of the Year’.
So at the start of next season, the many thousands of people who view a CA coaching video will see our players and coaches in action wearing their West Penno playing gear. How good.
End of one Chapter and opening of another
Playing your last game in Juniors is a bit like a parent’s emotions in having a child’s first day at school. It is filled with memories, good and some not so good but importantly it is a moment to reflect on the many good things. Our Photo shows Jane Bish and Wendy Paton reflecting on the last game for their kids back in 2018 – what a special moment from 2 of our most amazing mums.
During the week one of our wonderful parents from the U17s commented on us winning the Club Championship, against all odds. This is worth sharing as it says everything about what we aspire to as a Club and why we have such a high retention rate from Juniors through to Seniors:
“🌟Congratulations🌟 to the Club.
I have had 3 sons go thru Juniors. I have managed & scored their teams, my husband has umpired. We have had Rob & Steve always on hand for any queries (good or bad) they have gone above & beyond.🌟👏
I have always encouraged anyone thinking of getting their child to play cricket to go to WPHCCC, even Dads. I have said “it’s participation over results” they will GET a GO batting AND bowling.
As we say goodbye to Juniors we will remember the fun times, and of course the washed out semis & GF which could have been. The Tamworth carnival, Academy, Pink Stumps days, the u12 Cup victory, the many batting/bowling trophies, the scoring squabbles (😂), the funny tantrums & bat throwing, the coffee runs, gazebo putting up & downs, everything! Such wonderful memories.
🌟THANKYOU WPHCCC🌟”
For those of us who have just come out of Juniors it will stir up recent memories. For the mums and dads it will have more significance and bring back priceless memories of great friendships and lots of fun times of what being part of our great Club means.
Records loom
A little while ago, we commented on bowlers who were on track to breaking Association and long standing Club records. With the last game of the season, the following players are on the fringe of leaving their own mark in our history.
B2 Grade
Tom Hando (B2 Grade) has 34 wickets at 6.88. The Association B2 record is 6.40 held by our own Justin Paterson back in 2014/15.
D2 Grade
The Association & Club record bowling average is 7.58 set by Steve Ison way back in 1983/84. Going into the Grand Final we have potentially 3 players on track to breaking this long term record!
- Joseph Siby – 19 wickets @ 7.21
- Parin Pillamarri – 18 wickets @ 7.28
- Praneel Singh – 19 wickets @ 8.05
Add to this, Michael Richards (A1) winning the A1 bowling aggregate (32 wickets) & average (7.53) and just missing the Club (7.24) and Association record (6.57).
Watch this spot.
Reelin in the years
First up, our theme music for this section – here
Being Grand Final weekend why not recall a story back in 1951/52 – the A1 Grand Final. This was an amazing season. This is the season in which Laurie Tuckerman set an Association run scoring record of 1,361 runs @ 85.06. He also took 59 wickets @ 17.39. We also had 6 other batsman who scored over 300 runs with one player (R Bellamy) scoring 662 runs– so a pretty handy side.
In those days Grand Finals were timeless – they were played until completion.
On to the game.
We were playing St Ives at Bannockburn Oval. After 6 weeks the game was still going and because football had the ground booked the game was moved to Hassell Park – St Ives home ground. 4 weeks later (after 10 weekends!) we lost the game. This also marked the end of Laurie Tuckerman’s playing career. He was so cheesed off at the game lasting so long and being finished at the home ground of the Opposition that he left the Association – never to be seen again.
Quote of the season
Thomas Weeden (pictured) is a MasterBlaster and a pretty handy all-rounder. Anyway, Chris Green kindly came along to our Juniors Presentation on Saturday and after the presentations he was really keen to meet Chris and ask him a question – refer to photo.
Anyway, Thomas got his chance and his mum (Lyndal) was expected a question about bowling advice as Thomas is a really good bowler.
The question – “How do you look after your hair”
This brings back another famous quote when Dom Thornely (now a Junior Blasters dad with us), came along to a Kanga game on 6 November 2004. The day before, Dom had scored 261* for NSW (that included a record 11 x sixers). While showing the kids the bat he used one of our Kanga’s was underwhelmed by the 11 x sixers. His comment: “I got 12 sixers off my dad in the backyard last week.”
Simple equation
Josh Elliott (C2 Blue and pictured) is one of those quiet achievers who, as an opening bowler, just keeps getting better every game. His last 3 bowling performances have been 7/36, 2/13 and 5/20 in the 1st innings of the Grand Final.
In a low scoring Grand Final, after just losing on the first innings, our boys need to score quick runs and have another crack at the Opposition who they rolled in just 29 overs with Josh taking 5/20 from 11 hostile overs.
The equation to win the GF is simple. If Josh can grab another 5 wickets we will win the game and he become just the 54th player in our 90 year history to take 10 wickets in a match and the first to achieve this in a Grand Final.
BBL Trophy comes to WPH
The Juniors had their Presentation Day on Saturday (27 March) and CNSW lent us the BBL trophy – $15,000 worth of silverware to share with the local Community. As you can see from the photo, the Trophy was popular with a queue of folks wanting their photo taken with this great Trophy.
Space Cadet
Our theme music first for this significant achievement – here
To be win a Space Cadet call out is special. To get one in a grand final is rare. To get one as a Captain is unique. To get one as an Opposition Captain, in a Grand Final has never been achieved before. On Day 1 of the Grand Final, one Team we played against turned up to a Grand Final with just one new cricket ball. As you can guess, when playing in lower Grade GF’s, games are often played out over 4 innings. You guessed it, the game went into a 3rd innings on Day 1 and the skipper didn’t have a new ball.
So he asked our Skipper if they could use one of ours. Most Teams would say bad luck but our Skipper did the right thing and gave them one of our cricket balls. The story says a lot about our Skipper’s attitude to the spirit of the game.
The drought has broken
Luke Christensen (D2 and pictured 2nd left) has scored just on 2,000 runs for our Club but when it comes to Grand Finals it has been a different story. Luke is playing in his 5th Grand Final this weekend and scored 2 runs and broke a run drought in GF’s. These are the first runs Luke has scored in 4 previous trips to the crease in a Grand Final.