Anecdotes – Round 8 (1-Dayer), 2022-23 Season
Space Cadet
First – our latest theme music: Space Oddity
Just to show the significance of the prestigious Space Cadet Award our last winner was back in Round 3. What better way to celebrate the half-way mark of the season than for our latest winner – Anubhav ‘Jerry’ Banerjee (C4).
Jerry was at Team training during the week and forgot to bring along his protector. Nothing was going to stop Jerry from having bat so he found a willing mate to lend him his jockstrap and protector and put it on the outside of his shorts. From what we are told the protector was extra-large and Jerry proudly displayed something that was not all it looked – so as to speak.
So a Space Cadet award to Jerry for obvious reasons and to the C4 Team for actually having a communal jock strap and worst still – admitting it!
Quote of the Year
Our esteemed Seniors Leader, James Makin, sent a note out during the week to our Captains covering a number of requirements for playing for West Penno. It is worth highlighting a couple of his observations:
“…..We lead the way in terms of sportsmanship, respect for opposition/umpires, making sure all our players get a good go, etc.
We all want to win, and I expect us to try our hardest to do so, but I also want all WPHC players to be proud that they play for the greatest, fairest, most sporting club in the universe.
When we win we win with style, and when we lose we do so graciously….We do not play for teams, we play for a Club.”
Everyone who plays for our great Club should have this at the top of mind in every game we play.
The Captain’s Captain
Picture this one. The D1 Red boys are slogging it out on a hot day trying to win a game (they did) while their inspirational leader, Ian ‘Diggers’ Digby, was out at a work Christmas Party. To put this in context, his beautiful wife (Mamma Diggers) was out watching the mighty B1 Red’s on their way to yet another win.
To show why Diggers is such an inspirational leader, even during a Christmas Party his thoughts were with the Team during the heat of the day when he sent through this photo of his next schooner.
The season half-way snapshot
We are now at the halfway mark to the season and we have an amazing 10 of our 14 Teams in the top 4 with 4 Teams in 1st spot.
Teams performance
Seniors
How about our A1 side who go into the second half of the season on 44 points. This is the highest number of points in the Association covering all Grades, is the best for any of our A1 Teams and has been achieved despite the first two game being abandoned!
Juniors
In Juniors we have 8 x Teams in the Top 4 for the 5 Age Divisions that play competitive games.
Top 5 batters
|
Lachlan Edwards |
C3 Blue | 325 runs | 108.0 |
| Bradesh Ramamurthy | D1 Blue | 305 |
152.00 |
|
Ashane de Silva |
A1 | 284 | 94.0 |
|
Sparsh Polepalle |
C4 | 201 |
49.0 |
| Aman Singh | B1 Blue | 198 |
49.0 |
Top 5 bowlers
|
Todd Hutchinson |
B2 | 19 wickets | 9.0 |
|
Michael Richards |
A1 | 17 | 6.0 |
|
Ben Burrows |
C2 Blue | 13 |
14.0 |
| Kapil Tangri | C1 | 12 |
13.0 |
| Sparsh Polepalle | C4 | 12 |
10.0 |
Top 3 fielders
|
Connor Hindmarch |
B2 | 5 catches |
|
Prats Datar |
B1 Red | 5 |
| Luke Fullerton | C2 Red |
5 |
| Rommel Pandey | D1 Red |
5 |
Photo: Todd Hutchinson (B2 Captain & top ranked bowler – 1st left) supporting Movember with the b2 boys @ Kenthurst 2; 26 November 2022.
Personal achievements
Another Round, another round of outstanding personal achievements. Here goes:
- Arun Chaudhuri (D1 Blue) scored 100 – our 510th century
- Ryan ‘Birdcage’ Loveridge belted 101* – our 511th To make it even worse for those who came back to the Club he got a 4fa
- Word is that James Makin (A1) had a bowl. Far from the days of being a tearaway who has taken 370 wickets he now bowls spin. While no wickets, the last time he bowled was way back in 2017/18.
Photo: it is a bit grainy but here is Ryan ‘Birdcage’ Loveridge (Skipper, B1 Red) scoring his first ton and our 511th on the weekend.
Sportsmanship
It is good to callout some great Sportsmanship – this time from an Opposing Club – Glenorie A Grade side. The commentary from our A1 Grade Match Report writer (Michael Richards):
“Another interesting development in the overnight proceedings was that Captain Krang had stuffed up the team sheet, he had written Tiz’s name down twice. The missing player – Billy “Bruce Wood” Gaunt.
Considering the Association don’t fund a match referee for all A grade games, Krang had to ask the Glenorie Captain for a reprieve – and ask if he was ok for Billy to bat this week – he was very gracious in accepting.
No David Boon, no worries. When Sav learned about the news, his face went back to its horror state. He said an Opposition Captain in Grade cricket would never let Billy bat. He also said a team sheet mistake would never happen. Sav had an enlightening day today filled with horror, disgust and shock.”
Don’t complain about the heat
With summer just about to show its true colours and the inevitable thoughts about the effort of going out and baking in the hot sun – it could be worse. You could be in the UK and experiencing a cold blitz like the one at Lord’s this week.
Photo: Lord’s on Monday 12 December 2022
More on the six hitting spree last round
Last week we did a story on ‘Ram’ Ramamurthy (D2 and pictured) scoring his 2nd ton in succession after his 2 previous attempts ended with him being run out on 99. A bit more on this great effort – Ram hit 7 x 6’s & 8 x 4’s in his 100 not out.
The Team, who are coming 2nd in the Comp, also hammered a total of 16 x 6’s at Caterson 4. Of these, 7 players hit at least 1 x 6. Included in this were 2 by Jake Smith who hit 2 which are the first he has hit in 15 years of seniors cricket.
The record number of 6’s in an innings was 17 – also by this Team last season!
Photo: Ram – who scored 100* – his 2nd ton in a row after having previously been runout on 99 twice.
Champions
In our 92 years as a Club only 7 players have scored 200 runs or more and just 13 have scored 175 or more in just on 65,000 innings played over this time. At the Club last night we had 3 of our all-time champions – Brent Larkham (200 no in B2 on 4 November 2017), Campbell Wallace (176 no in C1 9 November 2019) & Lachlan Edwards (209 no in C3 on 19 & 26 November 2022).
Lachlan is also our youngest player to score a double and Brent the 2nd youngest.
Well done boys.