Level 1 Coaching
Cricket NSW has some further Level 1 Courses coming up. These are very good programmes and they are recommended for anyone who is serious about Coaching. Details are:

When:
1. Monday’s 11/2, 18/2 and 25/2
2. Sunday’s 17/2, 24/2, 2/3 and 9/3/2008 2008

Where:
1. SCG Indoor Centre, Driver Ave Paddington
2. Active Indoor Sports Mortlake

Time:
1. 5.30 pm to 9.30 pm
2. 1.0 pm to 4.00 pm

Cost: $120 but if you are using this to coach a Club side the cost is covered by the Club.

Next steps: please contact Ross Anderson on 9476-0595.

Level 2 Coaching
Cricket NSW is about to run one of their highly sought after Level 2 coaching courses. The course involves:
• Residential sessions at Sydney Academy of Sport between:
o Friday 30th May and Sunday 1st June
o Friday 13th June and Sunday 15th June
• Residential programme between Wednesday 9th July and Sunday 13th July at Kinross School Orange

Cost
$600 but the Club will fund this for anyone who will use the qualification to have an active coaching role in the Club rather than just a team.

Next steps
If you are interested then let Ross Anderson know by the 10th February but hurry as spots will go quickly.

Girls
The Girls are on a break over the Christmas / New Year and start again on Saturday 2nd February.

Junior boys
The standings after Round 8 are:
• U16s – White (2nd), Blue (4th)
• U15s – Blue (1st), Red (8th)
• U14s – White (1st), Blue (4th), Red (7th )
• U13s – Gold (=1st) Blue (6th), White (11th ), Green (13th )
• U12s – Red (4th), Blue (7th ),White (11th), Green (12th)
• U11s – Gold (1st), Green (=3rd), White (5th ), Red (13th), Blue (15th )

The Juniors now go into recess during the school holidays and start again on Saturday 2nd February 2008.

Tamworth trip
A combined WPHC U13 and U14 team was invited to participate in the Tamworth Cricket Carnival over the early New Year. This is a tremendous honour being invited into this major Carnival. The boys made such an impression they have been asked to come back again next season. We will get a write up and photo’s onto the website shortly so keep a watch out.

Kanga
A few years ago our Kanga’s were used in a Milo advertisement. Our photo gallery has a record of this fabulous day. We have now been asked to support an updated ad that will be produced in early 2008 so looks like some of our Kanga’s will get their moment of stardom. Stay tuned.

Seniors
A dry weekend and the last of our 1-day games. Results are:

A1 7/173 defeated CHRSL 108. A fabulous win against 1st placed Castle Hill. This was a clinical win that announced to everyone that the boys are genuine contenders for the Premiership – after struggling early in the season. Troy Newman, the quiet achiever, scored 47 with Adam Walter scoring 42 at the end of the innings. In the bowling, Simon Smyth took 3/5, Matt Dawson 2/12 (8 overs) and Peter Stott 2/24 (8). The boys are on a roll.

A2 7/125 defeated Kissing Point 122. In a tight competition the A2 boys just keep winning to consolidate 3rd place. There were no real stars with the bat – everyone contributed. Leigh Van den Broeke with 31 and Tim Leyshon 29 top scored. In the bowling though Tim Rae with 4/43, Mat Jobson 2/25 and Dylan Brogan 2/25 were the destroyers.

Colts 1/88 defeated Kenthurst 85 – a demolition of 4th placed Kenthurst by this richly talented side. Our leggie, Rohan Dixit starred with 4/13 (6 overs) but was supported by good allround bowling. Then the batting - we blew them off the park getting the runs in 10.1 overs. Matt (64*) and Tim Scoular had an opening partnership of 84 off 9 overs. Matt was in fire at one stage taking 32 off an over. This is a remarkable achievement and will be written up next week. The guys are in 1st place and on this form no one will get near them.

B1 Blue Vs St Ives – scores to come.

WPHC Red 5/175 lost to Normanhurst-Warrawee 7/176. What a close one that went down to the last ball. With 1 ball to go they needed 2 runs to win and got there with a snick through slips – almost the story of the season. In the batting, Nishane Pillay top scored with 44 with Andrew Mills 40 to give us 175 – a more than competitive score. James Mielnik took 2/30 in the bowling. The Reds will now miss the Finals but they will certainly make it tough on any side they play in the remaining 2 rounds.

C1 White 114 defeated Pymble 71. What an amazing game that shows why this team are clearout Competition leaders. After slumping to 7/41 on a slow Bannockburn against tight but non threatening bowling we battled to 114. Daniel Anderson (at 12 and playing his first seniors game) top scored for the match with a busy 22. Geoff Richards at number 11 then hit a fast 20 in a critical 30 run last wicket partnership. Enter the bowlers, supported by great fielding – John Mitchell 3/18, Ben McNamarra 3/25,Geoff Richards 2/6 (6 overs) and Kishore Rampersad 1/12 (8) were simply outstanding. This team does not give in and knew that any score over 80 was defendable with our attack – we did it.

C1 Red 8/132 lost to Thornleigh 6/134. After an amazing run up until Christmas the guys have had a few blips. After slumping to 6/59 of 23 overs Duncan Moore (42) set about salvaging the innings and managed to pull us along to a respectable target of 8/132. We started well reducing them to 4/46, however a number of dropped catches and missed chances saw them get away. Some more late wickets to Geoff Starr, who ended up with 3/12 off 8 overs, gave us a sniff of a chance, but it was all too little too late as they finished 6/134. Wickets were picked up by Geoff Starr with 3/12 (8 overs), Tim Starr 1/12 (8) and Chris Creais 1/24 did well.

C2 9/91 lost to CHRSL 3/92. Something unusual happened – we lost this game. Tight bowling by 2nd placed Castle Hill side restricted us to 91/9. Only Peter "dependable" Lees managed to trouble the scorers with a well played 40. Nobody else managed to get on top of the bowling, although Chris Williamson supported Peter through the majority of the innings. It was always going to be a big ask to defend the small total.1-Day'ers are clearly not the C2's favourite format – lets hope the return to real cricket spells a change in our fortunes.

D2 1/57 defeated Normanhurst-Warrawee 55. What a result! We won our 1st game of the season against 1st placed Normo who have only lost 2 games all season. In the bowling, we just kept getting wickets regularly. Shankar Ravi took 4/14 with Jon van Blerk chipping in with 3/16. We ended up doing it easily with Ben Pilipowski (24) and Roger Friend 20* all but getting us across the line. Added to this Roger Friend took his 100th career wicket. Brilliant effort all round fella’s.

Fees
A final reminder for those folks who have not yet paid their fees, our large Association bill is now due for payment. Your Captains will be approaching anyone with fees still outstanding. For Seniors these are $250 and Juniors $190. The early payment discount incentive of $20 has now passed. After this coming match priority for selection will be given to financial players. Thanks for your help.

Best combination
In D2, there are a couple of quiet achievers – Ravi Shankar (Leggie) and ‘keeper Bruce Caldwell have combined to take 7 stumpings so far. We don’t have any records on this one but it is an outstanding achievement.

‘I survived’
Got to hand it to Rowan Keating (B1). Rowan has just got back from extended holidays and is about to start playing again. No big deal about this but he spent 6 weeks touring such safe tourist havens as Jordan, Egypt, Alexandria, Libya and Tunisia. After going to these parts of the world facing up to the best fast bowling in a game of cricket will be child’s play. Congratulations on coming back in one piece (literally) Rowan.

From covers to crèche
Two of our talented Juniors (Daniel Anderson 12 and Michael Richards 14) were playing C1 on the weekend and helped bring the average age down. At one stage though, they were both fielding in the important positions of cover and cover point. The comment was made that we were renaming Covers to Crèche.

Tables turned
A couple of fantastic results on the weekend. A1, who were struggling at Christmas and in a fight for last place are now genuine contenders for the minor Premiership. Simon and the boys never lost faith and they have bounced back big time.

How about D2. The boys were looking down the barrel of a season without a win. They turned it around this week big time with a thumping win over 1st placed Castle Hill. All this with a team that backs up every week and enjoy playing. Fantastic fella’s.

Confidence
Got to hand it to Bran Ramachandran (D2). After being so used to batting reasonably quickly (he bats at 10) Bran was all padded up ready to go in. Problem was that we were only chasing 55 and we passed them 1 wicket down after a 50 run opening partnership. Good one Bran.

The Umpires verdict
Comment was made earlier that our A1 Grade win was so clinical it was like being in a hospital (not one in NSW). The umpire in the match (Ian Paterson) commented that when we were bowling he didn’t have to make a decision until 27 overs as all the others wee comprehensively out.

“It’s not fair”
A good one from C1. At one stage we had our ‘height challenged’ 12 year old and 14 year old batting together and doing it well. The Pymble first change bowler was about 190 cms and kept bouncing the boys. Problem was that he was being called for ‘no balls’ (bowling that is) as the ball was clearly going over their heads. The bowler then made a comment to the umpire that ‘it wasn’t fair’.

Top 10 run scorers – after Round 11
1. Nick Bennett (Colts) 443 @ 110.75
2. Michael McDowell (C1 White) 328 @ 46.86
3. Dan Moye (B1) 276 @ 39.43
4. Geoff Starr (C1 Red) – 264 @ 33.00
5. Taylor Paton (Colts) 254 @ 50.80
6. Dom Bourke (B1) – 248 @ 27.56
7. Andrew Mills (B1) – 241 @ 20.08
8. Tim Starr (C1 Red) – 236 @ 19.67
9. James Makin (A1) – 233 @ 46.60
10. Matt Scoular (Colts) – 232 @ 21.09

Top 10 Bowlers
1. Ben McNamara (C1 White) – 20 @ 15.00
2. Peter Stott (A1) – 18 @ 12.06
3. Isaac Malamel (C2) – 18 @ 15.94
4. Bran Ramachandran (D2) – 18 @ 18.44
5. Jacques Visser (C2) – 18 @ 23.56
6. Nick Bennett (Colts) – 17 @ 8.12
7. Jaskaran Singh (C2) – 17 @ 13.29
8. Dylan Brogan (Colts) – 16 @ 10.31
9. Ravi Shankar (D2) – 16 @ 16.94
10. Andrew Watt (C1 White) 16 @ 19.19

Club Championship
At the end of Round 11 and with 3 games to go we are getting into the Championship end of the Season. Unless we have a couple of bad Rounds looks like we are on track to win our 5th consecutive Seniors Club Championship:

1. WPHC 1,488
2. Kenthurst 1,211
3. St Ives 842
4. Hornsby 810
5. Normanhurst-Warrawee 791
6. CHRSL 780
7. Berowra 741
8. Asquith RL 687
9. Kissing Pt 685
10. Galston-Glenorie 454

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 11 is:

• A1 – 34 points (= 4th)
• Colts – 41 points (1st)
• A2 – 41 points (3rd)
• B1 Blue – 41 points (2nd)
• B1 Red – 24 points (6th )
• C1 White – 55 points (1st)
• C1 Red – 43 points (4th )
• C2 – 47 points (1st )
• D2 – 14 points (7th)

Personal achievements
I have been away for a couple of games and in that time there have been some wonderful personal achievements:

• Matt Dawson (A1) has achieved:
o 3,000 runs (12/1/08) and
o took his 200th wicket (22/12) – placing Matt at number 27 in the all-time wicket takers list!
• Chandana Jayasekera (B1) – scored his 1,000th run on 12/1
• Roger Friend (D2) took his 100th career wicket.

The next big one coming up is:
• Steve Baker 57 to his 1,000 runs.

Name Grade Achievement
Sean Doohan A2 100 wickets Vs Kenthurst Semi Final 17/3/2007

Nathan Fathers C1 1,000 runs Vs Hornsby

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

Matt Dawson A1 • 3,000 runs – Vs Kenthurst
• 200 wickets Vs Normanhurst-Warrawee•
Chandana Jayasekera B1 Red 1,000 runs Vs St Ives

Roger Friend D2 100 wickets Vs Normanhurst Warrawee @ Dural Park 26/1

James Makin
A2 • 3,000 runs Vs Kenthurst
• 339 wickets – 11 wickets to 350
Kishore Rampersad
C1 • 250 wickets – Vs Castle Hill RSL
• 3,850 runs – 150 to 4,000 runs
Steve Baker C2 943 runs – 57 to 1,000

David Meizis
C1 946 runs – 54 to 1,000
Bruce Poehlsen B1 Blue 888 runs – 112 to 1,000

Peter Whitehead A1 47 wickets – 3 to 50 career wickets

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 January 27, 2008 06:41 AM