Seniors Grand Final – 18th & 19th March 2023
Final Points Table (as at Round 14)
A Grade (Cam) – 2nd (75 points)
A2 Grade (Campbell) – 3rd (33 points)
B1 Red (Birdcage) – 4th (60 points)
B1 Blue (Shomik) – 6th (39 points)
B2 (Todd) – 1st (63 points)
C1 (Kapil) – 5th (50 points)
C2 Red (Indranil) – 5th (45 points)
C2 Blue (Rob) – 6th (43 points)
C3 Red (Cameron) – 3rd (54points)
C3 Blue (Tarun) – 6th (40 points)
C4 (Hiresh) – 6th (44 points)
D1 Red (Diggers) – 5th (51 points)
D1 Blue (Arun) – 9th (36 points)
D2 (Ross S) – 4th (61 points)
Match Reports – Grand Final
18th & 19th March 2023
A1 Grade
WPHC (Cam) 113 lost to Berowra 192
Day 1 – Berowra 192 all out
Without our spearhead, Brarrara won the toss and chose to bat. Then something happened that we couldn’t foresee…they batted for a draw.
Krang and KB Tiz opened up and bowled well for no reward, Sav tied up an end perfectly and Meiks came on to take the first wicket on the stroke of drinks. There we took another wicket, the first to Gandis of the day and were looking good.
After applying the clamps, just before the lunch break Sav had a caught behind as out as Carson Kressley, umpire Fletcher remained unmoved.
The partnership then continued for another hour until the ball before drinks, Tiz removed the stone wall Griff LBW. Brarrara 3/141.
After this, it all happened, and by all happened I mean it was a day for vegetables around the country. Gandis proved too cranky and too good for the Brarrara middle and lower order. He finished the day 6/28 off 20.1. Yes readers, 6/28 in a grand final. It was Gas’ day and boy didn’t he let us know about it: “It was my intention to do the match report but after today I’m going to pass because it’d be all about me if i wrote it and that’s not fair”
Berowra bowled out for 192, 6 for Gas, 2 for Meiks, Tiz 1 and Wu 1.
Wu 1 wicket you say? Yes. Wu got Rayner out as he promised he would…..AGAAAINNN.
Big chase on tomorrow, what a day for cricket, see you ALL there.
Day 2
Another hot day on a good deck and hopes were high with 10 wickets for a gettable target. Jackson Preedy was outstanding for his top score of 41 it was an innings marked by everyone getting a start but not converting. What is interesting is that in all the Finals games we have played against Berowra since the year 2000 this is the first game that has achieved a result – all the other Semi Final / Finals games were drawn.
A disappointing finish but a great season to have only lost one game all season getting into the big dance,
Team Members:
Sean Clarence, Ashane De Silva, Billy Gaunt, Michael Gunn, Tom Hando, Luke Herzog (Day 1), James Makin, Andy Meikle, Tis Mistry, Cameron McBrien (C), Michael Richards (Day 2), Jackson Preedy
A2 Grade
WPHC (Campbell) 122 & 3/54 lost to St Ives Wahroonga 184
Day 1 – 122 & St Ives 2/90
Picturesque Parklands Oval greeted A2s. Captain Campbell promptly losing the toss for the fourth straight match and St Ives opted to bowl.
What he lacks in tossing ability, Campbell “functional fingers” Wallace makes up for it with his batting.
Keen to impress a couple of talented spectators, Campbell made an excellent half-century. A “captain’s knock” according to Harry Hando, a phrase he thought of on the spot. Well done Harry.
Unfortunately, Rochow, Jed and Keats were the only other batsmen to reach double figures, leaving us with a below-par 122.
So to the Handos we turned. A family on the verge of becoming a dynasty.
Harry Hando bowled the most sumptuous of deliveries to knock over one St Ives opener. Swing. Seam. Pace. Middle stump. Uprooted.
Sam Hando quickly got rid of the #3 and at 2 for 10, St Ives were on the back foot.
Some good bowling went unrewarded in the final session. Lots of plays and misses as St Ives dug in and the pitch really flattened out.
Still in it for either first or second innings.
Day 2
Day two and with 30 to defend we called upon Dean Carlin, back from a week away with his missus who took 4 along with Sam Hando who bowled his quickest spell all year. And I quote their opener “I hope I don’t get a short one from him”. Sam proceeded to hit him in the head and clap in his follow through. We had them 6/100 and there was hope.
St Ives although having more talent actually watching from the sideline did keep batting and showed a some talent on field and had won on first innings just after first drinks. We pressed on looking for an outright.
Just before drinks we turned to Campbell in a desperate play. His functional fingers somehow managed to get a break through. Bowling off spin for the first time in about 3 years he got the breakthrough with his first delivery on a ball that umpire Simon Moore described as “a piece of sh*t that he didn’t know how it had bowled the batsman” – almost refusing to give him back to ball to finish off the over. Both things the team all agreed with.
All our bowlers toiled hard in the heat and we had them all out for 180 odd. The boys were back batting with the instructions of “swinging their t*ts off”. Maybe this was the play all year as we ended up with about 70 off about 10 overs just before tea.
On aggregate we did actually score more runs than St Ives but unfortunately it did take an extra innings and we eventually shook hands with not enough time to bowl them out again and went to support the A grade boys at Berowra oval. Credit to the grounds keeper at Parklands as he had his ground looking better to be honest.
Despite being rolled for 60 and having 300 scored against us twice we made the grand final in a season to be proud from A2’s.
Looking forward to going one better next season.
Team Members
Soham Agarwal, Shaan Bakshi, Dean Carlin, Justin Edwards, Harry Hando, Sam Hando, Tanay Hira, Avikshit, Matthew Philip, Steve Rochow, Kyle Townsend, Campbell Wallace (C).
B2 Grade
WPHC (Todd) 176 defeated Mt Colah 143
Day 1 – 176 all out
We’d arrive at Greenway, the home of cricket prepped for a hot battle in the heat. We’d win the toss, heads was the way the coin fell and would choose to bat, with ambitions of last week’s heroics with the bat.
We’d get off to a slow start, and unfortunately lose both openers early, in early trouble at 2/8 off 20 overs. Rick Turner would return from injury, accelerating his rehab program to be fit for the big day and didn’t look like he’d missed a beat, the ball effortlessly finding the middle of the bat. He’d latch onto anything short and punish the bowlers if they got their lengths wrong. It was a very valuable partnership he formed with none other than The Chris Williamson.
Rick would fall and we’d lose a second straight after and were back in a bit of trouble at 4/60.
Upset Xander Vink, who’d join Willy and pick up just where they left off last week, forming a brilliant partnership and they’d fight hard in the heat to bring us back into the match. Xander batted with a solid defence and put away the bad balls in yet another classy finals knock, and this time he’d surpass 50 and raise the bat for what was nothing short of well fought and deserved.
Chris Williamson would keep those ass cheeks pumping and those glutes contracting as he batted for yet another 90 flippin’ overs and brought up back to back 50s. A knock of pure class, grit and determination. 180 overs of batting across this finals campaign… more overs than I’ve faced in my whole seniors career.
Things were going well. Enter Steve Quanborough. He’d stroll up to Greenway, shake some hands, crack some jokes and witness a batting collapse of 6/16. It felt like a disappointing end to such a hard days cricket where we’d ground our way up to 176 on a difficult greenway pitch.
176 however is a respectable total and will make for a very competitive second day. Time for our bowlers to show what they are made of.
Thanks to everyone who came down, there was great support at the ground and on behalf of the team Thankyou it was much appreciated.
Day 2
To quickly report on what as truely hard fought battle, in the blistering heat. We gave Mt Colah nothing with the ball. Kept it tight or gone. Kept digging deep and fighting hard never dropping our heads and never giving in to the 38 degree weather. The tides would turn and the wickets would tumble. 6 wickets falling in the final session. Minor Premiers to Major Premiers with the most fantastic bunch of lads. Wickets:
- Todd Hutchinson – 4
- Paul Vink – 1
- Xander Vink – 1
- Jack Hutchinson – 1
- Craig Hutchinson – 1
- The Christopher Williamson – 1
- MATCH WINNING RUN OUT – Pratsy and Samuel Kirkegard
Thank you for all who came and cheered us on, that support really gave us the final push. And huge, huge shout out to Josh Elliot who unfortunately missed out on the XI but gave everything in the field saving 20 odd runs and allowing our bowlers to rest – truely embodied what West Penno is all about.
And now an intoxicated bio of your premiers:
Majestic, hard, superb, emotional. A few words to sum up a courageous effort from the lads. Incredible support was the 12th man of the day as the bowlers lead by a formidable Todd Hutchinson demolished the Mt Colah line-up.
Few honourable mentions from the day go to Jack Hutchinson and Xander Vink whose spells lead to the downfall of the Mt Colah batters by breaking partnerships and shifting the momentum into our favour. Jude and Dylan’s ‘Willy’ chat as well as providing the fluctuating markets and odds for our batters boosted the atmosphere on the sideline. BDR (big dick Rick) coming back from injury to inspire the boys, WHAT A GRAND FINAL!!!!
Jude Boyle. Doesn’t add much to the team aside from shit chat and vibes. Desperate for a bowl but unfortunately Todd plays to win. Unlike the rest of the team Jude had to disappear off to ‘tutor’ (meet with his sneaky link) after the game so he was missing at the Club. But just like Willy he came in the end.
Dylan Bish, a proper dog, dropped from the side for poor attitude sat on the sideline cheering with ordinary chat in front of the air con, whinging about the heat as he watched the true stallions of the team work hard out in the heat battle hard for a premiership.
Craig Hutchinson’s fathering worked wonders as they went to work battling hard in the heat. And shout out to Volc as he cheered Hutcho on from the closet as he produced two specimens of cricketers.
Joshua Elliot, celebrity scorer, celebrity fielder, star netballer. The people’s champion. In the words of Josh Elliott “didn’t get selected only because he didn’t see my 9 not out against Beecroft at Bannockburn”.
Connor Hindmarch. He was there.
Volk, gully specialist and specialist in tight areas and master of the mind, probing away at the batsmen, letting them know, in the words of Paul that “they are at the Greenway Furnace”. Against all odds Volk managed to get down and take a sharp catch down low at a crucial moment. Truely a legend of West Penno.
Mt Colah needs to chat with Mrs Vink, on Paul and Xander Vink because they were the maestros of the bowling attack delivering again and again. Paul’s masterful manipulation of the ball is dwarfed in comparison to his elite chat, “ready for lunch I can smell the melted cheese”. These inspirational words fuelled the young gun and stud Xander Vink. The batsmen were forever in fear of Xander’s pace with balls coming at the batters faster than Willy.
Team members
Michael Banner, Jude Boyle, Prathamesh Datar, Connor Hindmarch, Craig Hutchinson, Jack Hutchinson, Todd Hutchinson (C), Sam Kirkegard, Rick Turner, Xander Vink, Paul Vink.
C3 Grade
WPHC Red (Cameron) 134 lost to St Ives Wahroonga 157
Day 1 – St Ives 5/113
WPH turned up to play an exciting Grand Final and unfortunately St Ives didn’t. WPH won the toss and we elected to bowl first with all 14 of our core team available to play, the Captain nominated 3 day x 1 players and 3 x day 2 players making sure all 14 could participate and contribute to the team.
Some fantastic bowling and fielding from our boys had SI 1/29 after 30 overs. It appeared that SI were intending on playing for a draw from the first ball and to their credit, they gave few chances all day but did not bat with any intent. They were just keen on batting the whole of day one – perhaps a strategy that will work in their favour but not if our start on day 2 goes to plan – get early wickets for as little runs as possible.
John Rose finished with 1/11 off 16 overs, Amit Sen 1/13 off 12 overs, ad Makund Venkat – who bowled with plenty of pace finished with 2/15 off 13 overs. A smart run out from Rohit Bhulla has SI at 5/113 after a massive 83 overs.
Tomorrow is our chance to win the game – at this stage I would back WPH to be lifting the trophy but the first hour will be critical.
Day 2
A disappointing outcome on day two of the Grand Final. SI continued batting after being 5/113 at the end of day one to finish with 157.
Our bowlers toiled hard and it was evident that SI just wanted to bat for as long as possible to give us little chance of victory. The crucial thing was the last 5 wickets took 20 overs to achieve and they only added 40 runs to their score.
WPH had 46 overs to score 158 or 3.43 runs per over to win and with our consistent victories in the one day format, we thought we were in for a real showdown.
Similar to last week in the Semi Final, we are 6/93 after 31 overs with Brent Van Wyk scoring 30 and Vinod Kumar with a classy 27. What beat us today was some really soft dismissals at crucial times and eventually we came up 24 runs short of victory but we gave it a good shot and the Opposition was pretty nervous throughout.
There was nearly 160 overs bowled in extreme heat and that will challenge any team but I am very proud of where this team came from to finish runners up and to accept the defeat graciously.
The comradery was great and the support shown by each other was fantastic.
Thank you to the few guys that came along to support us in a tremendous finale to the season.
Team Members
Cameron Croucher (C), Vikas Goel, Saurabh Kapoor, Vinod Kumar, Aniket Mahundra, Mukund Narayanan, Happy Rana, John Rose, Hari Sankar, Amit Sen, Brijesh Sharda, Brent van Wyk.