Fifty years service
I had the privilege of forwarding 2 nominations to Cricket Australia via Cricket NSW during the week for 2 of our wonderful administrators who have clocked up 50 years of continuous service to cricket. How about this for a priceless contribution to our Great game – and this is only a snapshot of two illustrious careers:

Barry McDonald – Club Chairperson (1985 to present)
• 58 years continuous involvement starting out at Summer Hill Methodist in the Churches Comp and then with Petersham Marrickville District Cricket Club playing years of 1st Grade and being 1st and 2nd Grade selector
• Long term and high performing A1 player with WPHCCC (Barry finished the 19978/79 season with a batting average of 99.5 and scored 3,096 runs for our Club and held Association wicket keeping records for many years
• Life member of WPHCCC
• Life Member of the HK&HDCA
• HK&HDCA Treasurer for 12 years
• HK&HDCA Umpire since 1980

John Coulthard – Director – Kangas (2002 to the present)
• 62 years continuous service starting at Summer Hill Methodist in the Churches Comp
• Like Barry, John played for Petersham Grade Club
• Reporting Secretary of the NSW Churches for 18 years
• State Churches selector for 18 years
• Came out of retirement to play for WPHCCC in 1983/84 until 1993/94 and scored 1,424 runs and took 97 wickets. John chose to play C1 grade to Captain teams of young players to develop and mentor them
• Life Member of the NSW Churches Competition
• Life Member of WPHCCC

Barry and John we are so privileged to have you running our Club.

Girls
Our Girls have finished for the season and now have a well earned break until registrations for next season in the last week of July. We will list the winners of the various Awards once they are to hand.

Junior boys
What a tremendous achievement. Our Club has a policy of ‘Participation over results’ so that everyone gets a fair-go teams are Teams not graded. The Finals were played on Sunday 10th March and results are to hand.

U16
WPHC Blue (3rd) 63 lost to Upper Hills (1st) 64 (P Bhatia 7/17).
Played on turf this was an absolute thriller with our boys going down by 1 run.

U15
WPHC Blue (1st) 2/130 (K Godfrey 65 and Michael Richards 42) defeated Upper Hills (3rd) 128.
A convincing victory by this talented side.

U14
WPHC White (1st) 8/147 (Sid Shanker 43, Darshan Pandya 30) defeated Castle-Hill RSL (3rd) 127 (B Jack 4/22).
Another thriller that needed us bowl and bat well to defend a sub par score and we did it against a very strong Castle Hill side.

U13
WPHC Gold 107 (Tom Lees 38, Arbhi 26) lost to Berowra 9/108.
Another nail biter that went down to the 53rd over with a 6 run last week partnership. This is the first Finals loss to this talented team who were after their 3rd successive Final win. All year the Gold’s have had to defend low scores with brilliant fielding and bowling and this was no different but we just missed out.

U12
WPHC Red 8/143 (J Preedy 64* and A Hawkins 48) lost to Mt Colah 5/152
Yet another nail biter coming back from 3/20 to almost achieve victory chasing a good score. A 112 run partnership was just not enough to get us over the line but a fantastic effort.

U11
WPHC Gold 7/163 (C Bell 50*, T Mistry 33, A Ramakrishnan 3/20) defeated WPHC Green 151 (A Ramakrishnan 73)
Fabulous cricket with the Golds, remaining undefeated for the season, sent in to bat and setting a competitive target with the Greens falling short of victory by just 13 runs having been bowled out with only 3 overs remaining.

Best ever
This is the first time that we have had 7 teams in the 6 Age Division Finals. The previous best was 4 in both 2005/06 and 2006/07. To achieve this with a ‘Participation over results’ policy is simply outstanding. To win 3 and lose 3 is a fantastic result. The scores are amazing – losing the U16s by 1 run, U13’s by 1 wicket and U12’s by 9 runs says it all. Well done to every team who even made it this far.

Club Championship
We don’t yet have the final Club Championship standings but it is likely that we have retained this Trophy. If this is correct is will be the 5th time since 2002-03 – only missing out last season.

Presentation Day
· When: Sunday 30th March
· Where: Campbell Park or Oakhill Drive Public School at 1.00 pm if it is wet
· Time: 11.00 am. This should go for about an hour maximum.

Kanga
Kanga has now finished for the year with the Presentation happening at Edward Bennett Oval on Saturday 8th March. We have 51 ‘Graduates’ who now move on to U9’s next season. Yet another fabulous where even the wet weather didn’t dampen spirits too much.

Seniors
Day one of the Semi Finals and the results follow – details are:

A2 (3rd) 86 and 5/32 defeated outright ARL (2nd) 57 and 57 – somehow they managed to get on to a Turramurra Oval on what Steve Quanborough referred to as a ‘tough deck’. What a game. ARL resumed at 3/23 (effectively 3 for minus 6) but a badly rain affected pitch. Any chase was going to be difficult. In the bowling, Matt Jobson was terrific taking 5/34 with Brad Hingle 2/4 and Scott Henderson 2/17. How about these for match bowling performances – Matt Jobson (8/54) and Scott Henderson (6/36)! Our turn to bat needing 29 to win but on a landmine. After a great start (0/20) we finished at 5/32 to get over the line. A fantastic effort using the sub-standard conditions on both days better than ARL although we did get first use through a good toss win.

Colts (1st) drew with Vs Hornsby (4th) – after rain got under the covers at Storey Park there was no play either day so we go through to the final as Minor Premier.

C1 White 8/249 (1st) defeated WPHC C1 Red 7/242 dec – this was always going to be a tight game and this is the way it turned out. After losing 2 quick wickets to be 3/23 Tony Hadley (80) and Sahil Khana (47) were simply brilliant. They put on 121 and batted well after the Tea break providing a very good platform for the strong White’s batting order. At 5/225 chasing 242 the game was all but over but...no one told the Red’s. They fought back hard taking 3/12 to take this game to the down wire. In the end the White’s got up with a strong order and on a deck that offered no help to the bowlers – either week. For the White’s, Tony Hadley was superb with his 80, Sahil has evolved into one of the most difficult openers to get out in the Comp. Added to this was a return to form by Michael McDowell with 38 and things are looking good for the Final. The Red’s were equally impressive with Mark Bell 3/24 outstanding. Congratulations to both captain’s – john Mitchell and Geoff Starr – both class acts who made sure the game (between 2 teams from the same Club) was played in the right spirit.

C2 (1st) 9/162 defeated Normanhurst-Warrawee (4th) 143 – another amazing win. Resuming at 5/55 it was going to be tough. Making it even more difficult was the loss of gun bat, Steve Baker 2nd ball of the day (probably not a good idea to play a sweep shot to a ball on middle stump) to leave us 6/55 and in trouble. Enter Isaac Malamel who played the innings on the season with 52 – under pressure. With Dave Gane (19) they got us within striking distance. We eventually passed Normo with 2 byes and 8 down – it was this close. This is now the 2nd time this Team has got out of jail with someone doing something special – the sign of a very good Team with great character. Well done boys.

Last premierships
A2 – last won 2006/07 so defending the crown
Colts – first appearance in a Final
C1 – 2003/04 under Dale Van den Boogaard
C2 – 2004/05 under Craig Willmott

Presentation Night – one for the diaries
While yet to be confirmed, it is likely that our Seniors Presentation Night is likely to be:
• When: Friday 9th May
• Where: Castle Hill RSL
• Time: probably around 7.30 pm
• Cost to be confirmed

This is always a fabulous night. More info will follow and we will need confirmation of attendance closer to the night. Stay tuned.

Great comments
Chris Williamson
Chris (C2) is beginning to make a name for himself – he is at it again. While Isaac Malamel winning a tough game he commented that it was good to see “Isaac standing up for us today” the reply “how else is he going to bat” – not bad when you think about it.

Andrew Fiedler (C1)
Andrew is one of the best bats in the C1 Comp. Before going out to bat he had a hit in the nets. Unfortunately he got out LBW not playing a shot to a straight ball when on 1 run. A comment from John Mitchell was that he just needs to be reminded “that the bat is taken out for a reason”.

Ross A
When you bag people you might as well bag yourself. Two great comments; Two balls before Tony Hadley was caught brilliantly by Geoff Starr for 80 – “Tony has never scored a ton before” – he still hasn’t. A follow-up about Nathan Fathers “Nathan is probably the most technically correct bat in the Team” – next ball he was bowled middle stump. After that shot Andrew Fiedler rated him in the top 10 for the team for technique.

Club Championship
Congratulations everyone. We have now been officially confirmed as Seniors Club Champion. This is the 5th season in succession we have won this Award – a fantastic result.

1. WPHC 1,712
2. Kenthurst 1,361
3. Normanhurst-Warrawee 1,357
4. St Ives 1,336
5. Berowra 1,179
6. CHRSL 1,164
7. Hornsby 1,113
8. Asquith RL 1,093
9. Kissing Pt 1,022
10. Galston-Glenorie 648

Top 10 run scorers – after Round 14
1. Nick Bennett (Colts) 484 @ 96.80
2. Michael McDowell (C1 White) 351 @ 39.00
3. Ronan Barrett (A2) 341 @ 37.89
4. Tim Starr 340 @ 22.67
5. Matt Scoular 338 @ 26.00
6. Geoff Starr (C1 Red) 334 @ 30.36
7. Andrew Mills (B1) 326 @ 21.73
8. Troy Newman (A1) 293 @ 26.64
9. Dan Moye (B1) 287 @ 35.88
10. James Makin (A1) 267 @ 33.38
11. Ross Anderson (C1) 267 @ 33.38

Top 10 Bowlers
1. Ben McNamara (C1 White) – 25 @ 14.84
2. Dylan Brogan (Colts) – 23 @ 10.09
3. Ravi Shankar (D2) – 23 @ 14.61
4. Peter Stott (A1) – 22 @ 12.64
5. Matt Dawson (A1) – 22 @ 14.05
6. Jaskaran Singh (C2) – 20 @ 11.70
7. James McBrien (C1) 20 @ 13.75
8. Jacques Visser (C2) – 20 @ 13.75
9. Nick Bennett (Colts) – 20 @ 22.85
10. Rohan Dixit (Colts) 19 @ 14.84

Personal achievements

The next big one coming up is:
• Steve Baker 18 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
Kishore Rampersad
C1 • 250 wickets – Vs Castle Hill RSL
Steve Baker C2 943 runs – 57 to 1,000

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.

Posted by Ross Anderson on March 9, 2008 06:07 AM