Northern Districts Club Coaching Day
The Annual Northern Districts Coaching Day is fast approaching. Run over the school holidays this is a very good programme with some star coaches – Dean Gilchrist, Justin Langer and Upal Chandana (Sri Lankan ODI and Test All-rounder). Details are:
• When: Monday 21st January to Wednesday 23rd January
• Where; Waitara Oval
• Time: 9.00 am to 3.00 pm
• Cost: $190 for the full 3 days
• Contact: please contact Sportspro on 9453-1451. Details are also on the website.

We have a great relationship with ND’s and this programme is recommended.

Clubs Day
Cricket NSW is running its annual “Clubs Day’ for the Twenty/20 ‘Big Bash’ match between NSW and the Western Warriors at Telstra Stadium on the 10th January starting at 7.00 pm.

The promotion wants Junior Teams to turn up in Club colours in a ratio of 4:1 (12 kids to 3 adults) to be in the running for prizes.

If interested then please let your Manager know so that it can be passed on to Cricket NSW – we need to respond by 14th December.

Girls
All games were washed out on the weekend and are played next week as 1-dayers. We have a break after the 15th December for the school holidays. Games then re-commence on the 2nd February until 1st March with Semi Finals / Finals played over 8th and 15th March 2008. This gives us 14 weeks of competition plus finals.

Junior boys
The standings after Round 6 are – Round 7 has yet to be updated:
• U16s – White (= 1st ), Blue (4th )
• U15s – Blue (2nd), Red (8th)
• U14s – White (=1st), Blue (4th), Red (= 5th )
• U13s – Gold (1st ) Blue (7th ), White (=7th), Green (12th )
• U12s – Red (3rd ), Blue (7th ), Green (9th), White (13th)
• U11s – Gold (=1st), White (= 1st), Green (6th ), Blue (14th ), Red (10th)

Next week we play the last Round before the Christmas/New Year break.

Seniors
Another rain affected weekend but at least we got a few games underway.

A1 Vs Castle Hill RSL – washout both days. Thje last time the boys played was way back on the 23rd November so spare a thought for the lads but that is turf cricket.

A2 Vs ARL – washout

Colts 1/8 drew with Normanhurst-Warrawee 153 – the lads managed to get some play in at The Glade before a heavy thunderstorm. Restricting Normo to 152 from 40 overs we were well placed for a go at this total. Then the rain - we lasted 1.5 overs to be 1/8 before the rain and hail caused play to abandoned. It looks like one of those seasons.

B1 Blue 68 lost to WPHC Red 5/70. A bitter/sweet game between our 2 B1 Teams. Alistair Rayment was the difference taking 5 wickets to put the Blue’s in a tough position. If this was not good enough his 3 wickets in 4 balls made it tougher. While losing 5 wickets getting there the runs were achieved in 20 overs. In a very tight comp this consolidates the reds position in the top 4.

C1 White 3/72 defeated Pymble 70 – a comprehensive win over a team just out of the top 4. After 2 early run-outs on a very slow Holland Road they never recovered. Andrew Watt 2/8 (6), Ben McNamara 2/17, Mark Bonnichsen 2/27, Kishore Rampersad 1/6 (4) and John Steel 1/7 all took wickets. In reply we did it easily losing only 3 wickets. This consolidates us in 1st place.

C1 Red 1/126 defeated Thornleigh 125 – bowling first we handled the wet ball well with Mark Bell (3/14) and Michael Hobern 4/12 were impressive. After losing an early wicket, Geoff Starr (75*) and Mark Bell (45) combined for a 119 run partnership to steer us home with just under 5 overs to spare, with Geoff depositing the ball well into the bushland to finish it off. This comp is developing very much as a West Penno 1 and 2 finish.

C2 78 lost to CHRSL 7/166 – our competition front runners came back to earth against 3rd placed Castle Hill. Up until the last 4 overs we were on top until they scored 50 runs off these overs t build an imposing total on a slow ground at Arcadia. Dropping 5 or 6 catches didn’t help our cause in this game. In the batting, only Ashraf made any impact.

D2 97 lost to Kissing Point 3/101 – stil searching for our first win we went down to Point in a shortened 1-dayer after a ground change. Our South African lads, Claudio Van Blerk (28 ) and Stephen Keevy ( 18 ) were the best of our batsmen, while Roger Friend’s wicket sees him edging closer to the 100 wicket milestone.

Weather for Ducks
They reckon the La Nina (the wet weather cycle) is now in place. This is certainly the case on the weekend. One of our unusual stories was the result on a ground inspection of Campbell Park on Saturday morning. It quickly became evident that there would be no play when the brood of ducks were having a great time on the centre wicket.

Shadow batting
Got to ‘hand’ it to Andrew Mills (B1). After getting out, (caught behind to a cut shot) Millsy then went to the gents and began playing shadow shots for the next 10 minutes – during and after this experience. No sure what happened in there but something must have inspired him.

A long time coming
After hitting a big six, Ross A (C1) was sledged from the boundary that the last time this happened, half (then corrected to most) players in the team were not born. Unfortunately this was close to the mark. After this uncalled for (just joking) sledging the next ball was straight and thanks for coming.

A bit of excitement
In the C1 Red game at Thornleigh Oval there was a bit of excitement towards the end of the day, with a stranger who was obviously doped up to his eyeballs (James McBrien is apparently very experienced in these matters), wandered up out of the bush and onto the field, deciding he was going to try and join in.

There were a few hairy moments when he grabbed the other team's bowler by the wrist and wouldn't let go. After a few ‘quiet’ words from a number of people he wandered off to be someone else’s nightmare.

Top 10 run scorers
1. Nick Bennett (Colts) 285 @ 142.50
2. Michael McDowell (C1 White) 257 @ 64.25
3. Dan Moye (B1) 222 @ 55.50
4. Taylor Paton (Colts) 219 @ 54.75
5. Tim Starr (C1 Red) – 201 @ 28.71
6. Dom Burke (B2) – 198 @ 39.60
7. Ross Anderson (C1 White) 181 @ 45.25
8. Peter Taylor (B1) – 180 @ 45.00
9. James Makin (A1) – 179 @ 89.50
10. Peter Heidegger (C2) – 172 @ 43.00’

Top 10 Bowlers
1. Ben McNamara (C1 White) – 14 @ 16.79
2. Bran Ramachandran (D2) – 14 @ 16.79
3. Peter Stott (A1) – 13 @ 13.46
4. Jacques Visser (C2) – 13 @ 19.92
5. Andrew Joyce (B1) – 12 @ 12.92
6. James McBrien (C1 Red) – 12 @ 14.17
7. Isaac Malamel (C2) – 12 @ 16.25
8. Amir Marzouk (A1) – 11 @ 17.45
9. Adam Walter (A1) – 11 @ 18.91
10. Geoff Starr (C1 Red) – 10 @ 9.90.

Club Championship
At the half-way mark we are doing very well and are on track for back to back Club Championship wins. The table at the end of Round 6 is:

1. WPHC 896
2. Kenthurst 687
3. CHRSL 666
4. Hornsby 650
5. St Ives 618
6. Norm-Wee 531
7. Berowra 529
8. ARL 527
9. Kissing Pt 493
10. Galston-Glen368

Points table
Just a reminder that you can get this info from www.cricketnsw.com.au/hkhdca - the table as at the end of Round 6 is:

• A1 – 16 points (= 6th)
• Colts – 21 points (3rd)
• A2 – 27points (2nd )
• B1 Blue – 23 points (= 2nd)
• B1 Red – 17 points (= 4th)
• C1 White – 34 points (1st)
• C1 Red – 32 points (2nd)
• C2 – 36 points (1st )
• D2 – 6 points (7th)

Personal achievements

Watch the following big ones coming up:
• Matt Dawson – 2 wickets off his 200 wickets
• Roger Friend 3 off his 100 wickets

Name Grade Achievement
Sean Doohan A2 100 wickets Vs Kenthurst Semi Final 17/3/2007@ Turramurra Oval
Nathan Fathers C1 1,000 runs Vs Hornsby @ Montview West 27/1/2007

Jacques Visser C2 50 wickets Vs Hornsby

Ross Anderson C1 7,000 runs Vs ARL
Ryan Cherrie B1 150 wickets Vs Mt Colah

Andrew Mills B1 2,000 runs Vs Normanhurst-Warrawee

Simon Smyth A1 200 wickets – Vs Berowra

Adam Walter A1 100 wickets Vs Berowra

James Makin
A2 • 3,000 runs Vs Kenthurst
• 339 wickets – 11 wickets to 350
Kishore Rampersad
C1 • 250 wickets – Vs Castle Hill RSL
• 3,858 runs – 142 to 4,000 runs
Steve Baker C2 929 runs – 71 to 1,000

Matt Dawson A1 • 2,954 runs – 46 off 3,000

• 198 wickets – 2 off to 200
Roger Friend D2 97 wickets – 3 to 100

Lachlan Gill B1 Blue 963 runs – 37 to 1,000

Chandana Jayasekera B1 Red 975 runs – 25 to 1,000

David Meizis
C1 946 runs – 54 to 1,000

Bruce Poehlsen B1 Blue 874 runs – 126 to 1,000

Alistair Rayment
B1 Blue 185 wickets – 15 off 200

Iain Ryan B1 139 wickets – 11 off 150 career wickets

Craig Willmott C1 1,919 – 81 to 2,000 career runs

DCA website – points table
Now that the season is well underway anyone can track how their teams are going in the Competition in Both Seniors, Juniors and Girls by accessing the following website: www.cricketnsw.com.au/hkhdca and then just go to WPHCCC and then your team.

Alternatively, just go to Links on our website and it is the first entry.

Probably worth locking this into your favourites and checking after each game for the standings.

Website developers and graphic artists
We are privileged to have Peter Lees do all the website work for our Club. However, it is run by volunteers and we always need to involve others to share the fun.

If you have abilities in Perl scripting, graphic design or other web-related skills, and would like to contribute to your Club, please contact Peter (AT) wphccc.org

Posted by Ross Anderson on December 9, 2007 06:10 AM