Volunteer exploits

We have many amazing volunteers in our Club – in fact everything that we experience around our Club is due to the volunteer effort of hundreds of people from those who umpire and score to those who run our Club at Executive Committee level.

Barry McDonald (our Club Chair and pictured right, with Club President Andrew Miedler) is in the news again this week – literally. Have a read of the following article in this week’s SMH – read article

It is worth taking a moment to put into context the contribution of one of our great Leaders who has led us to be one of the pre-eminent Cricket Clubs in Australia. Barry’s achievements are legendary. How about this for a resume::

• Club Chair – 1985 to the current day
• WPHC Life Membership
• HK&HDCA Life Membership
• Australian Sports Medal (2000)
• HK&HDCUA Life Member
• HK&HDCUA Patron
• Cricket Australia 50-years Service to Cricket medallion
• Association Integrity Cup (2014 & 2017

500^th ton – we got there

It’s taken 91 years, just on 63,000 innings but we got there! Our 500^th Seniors ton. Congratulations to Happy Rana who scored 100 retired on one leg battling a calf injury. The cap it off it was also a Sheep Station Cup between the D1 Blues & the D1 Reds at the spiritual home of cricket – Campbell Park.

Over the last 10 years we are scoring, on average, 13.5 tons / season so at this rate we will get to 600 in around 7 years. For those keen enough to be still playing, we will bring up our 1,000^th ton in just on 37 years or the year 2058!

To complete the background to this achievement it is worth recalling, briefly, the significance of this achievement. Here goes:

• 104 runs – our 1^st century was scored by Graham Bissett in 1946/47 playing B1
• 225 – highest individual score by Kevin Smith in 1951/52 also in B1
• 5 x double tons – the number of double centuries scored in our history
• 7 x centuries – the most centuries by an individual. This was by Laurie Tuckerman in 1951/52 playing A1. His scores were: 161, 141*, 139*, 122, 109, 103 & 111) – all in the one season!
• 4 – record number of centuries in succession (Daniel Anderson U16s – 134*, 104*, 122* & 153*) in 2011
• Youngest double century scorer – Brent Larkham (B2 in 2017)

Seniors take note

Kamran Bloach (C4) sent through this great photo in the U13 Green Vs Gold game from Saturday. The boys scored for the entire match and got the scores to tally perfectly, first time. For our Seniors Captains who invariably have to try and balance score books after games with recordings that are at times unreadable – take note – it can be done.

Reelin’ in the years

First up, our theme song – the Steely Dan classic here

This one is on your friendly editor. Many years ago he (Ross A pictured 2nd right with Andrew Miedler, Andrew Fiedler and James Makin) used to open the bowling in A2 Grade and has taken 140 wickets (870 overs) that included an A2 Grade hat-trick – one of only 50 in our history. After a back injury way back in 2007/08 he never bowled another ball.

So after 14 years his Skipper, Ian Diggers (D1 Red), with his steely resolve said ‘have a bowl’ with the game in need of a break-through. Always one to say yes, well mostly, someone who was once tearaway fast bowler was now a wily spin bowler. The result, after 14 years he bowled his first over and got the wicket of the top scorer.

Records like this are hard to track but there is a big chance that this is the longest period between not just overs for our Club but also wickets.

An amazing result

Over the last 4 seasons we have had the most amazing series of ‘events’ that have tested every sporting Club. Think about this – since 2017 we have had: games abandoned due to heat (Feb 2017); the worst bushfires in NSW history (December 2019 & January 2020); the rain Event (March 2021); and ofcourse, the pandemic that started in March 2020.

This season was the toughest after the 2^nd Covid (Delta) wave, a lockdown that lasted 4 months (106 days) and caused the season start to be delayed by 5 weeks and public hesitancy about playing community sport – especially among our younger unvaccinated members.

The result? We just clocked over our 767^th Registration – passing the 766 rego’s we had last season with more to come as the younger players return to playing as confidence in public health increases. This covers our Junior Blasters (5 to 7), Master Blasters (7 to 10 years), Juniors (mixed) U11s to U17s, Girls only & Seniors. Add to this Blowfly cricket numbers that aren’t included in these numbers.

This is an amazing result and sitting behind the result is the phenomenal work of our volunteers who have had the most challenging start to a season in our history but collectively, everyone contributed and have made the start seamless.