Presentation day
Juniors
The Junior Presentation Day held last week was another outstanding success with a big turnout and fabulous weather at Campbell Park. Just as an insight into our own loaves and fish parable. We had about 650 people turn up and they consumed:
• Sausages: 400
• Steaks 150
• soft drinks 600
• Loaves of bread 60 (960 slices)
• Cordial 4 large McDonalds Drink containers

Seniors
Another one for the diaries:
• When: Friday 7th May
• Where: Castle Hill RSL (Sovereign Room)
• Time: 7.30 pm kickoff

This is one of the highlights of the year and every year it just gets better. Players, families and friends are most welcome. One of the good things also is the large number of partners and parents who turn up with the younger players especially. More info will follow on this one so stay tuned.

Girls
This season we have 3 Girls teams – 2 in B grade and 1 in C Grade. They have done tremendously well this season. Last weekend the Finals were played on Saturday.

B Grade – WPHC Blue Vs Gordon @ Berry Park

C Grade – WPHC Vs West Ryde Rovers @ Cedarwood Oval

Bad luck to our B Grade Red side that lost a close one to Gordon in their 20/20 Semi Final. The scores in the Semi Final were:

WPHC 5/86 (Dashuni Kannangara 16) lost to Gordon 4/87 (Georgia Willmot 2/9)

Juniors
The Junior Grand Finals were played last Sunday and our Premiers are:

• U16’s: WPHC White (3rd successive victory)
• U15’s - no finalists
• U14’s - WPHC Blue
• U13’s WPHC Green
• U12’s - no finalists
• U11’s - Runner up

U10 and U9’s play a non competition game.

Grand Final results are:
U16’s
WPHC White 104 (Sid Shankar 26 and 1/6 off 11 overs) defeated Mt Colah 58

U14’s
WPHC Blue 6/151 (A Gnanasekaram 41, Matt Vile 24, Nicck Hey 20) defeated WPHC Red 92 (Matt Vile 2/18, J Cummings 2/6, J Roots 2/4, A. De Silva 2/12)

U13’s
WPHC Green 7/213 (A. Ramakrishnan 109, S Iyer 44, V Suri 22) defeated Kissing Point 159 (V Suri 1/31, A Ramakrishnan 1/27, K Li 2/18, A Bedi 2/9)

U11’s
WPHC 97 lost to Kissing Point Red 9/139

Seniors
Day 2 of the Semi Finals was played on Saturday. The results are:

A1 9/241 dec. defeated Vs St Ives 199 – we scored a terrific hard-fought win over 2nd placed St Ives after declaring at our overnight score. Despite some lethal bowling from Scott Henderson (1/42) and Matt Spalding (1/25), wickets were hard to come by early on. We continued to mount pressure on their batsmen though and picked up wickets whenever St Ives looked like getting on top. After lunch an inspirational spell from our spinners, Peter Stott (4/44 off 14 overs) and Matt Dawson (2/46 from 14 overs), tore the heart out of the St Ives batting. Some middle/late order hitting threatened for a while to get them back in the game, but Simon Smyth and Peter then tied up the last few wickets for a memorable 42 run win. We now play a strong ARL side seeking their 5th straight Premiership but go into the game with good momentum and ready to take them on.

A2 118 & 7/187 defeated St Ives 51 – after being 71 runs ahead at the start of the day we knew a good start would put us in a good position early. Our openers (Tim Rae and Matt Jobson) provided that by putting on 40 for the first wicket, leaving us 110 in front with 9 wickets in hand. Unfortunately this sparked a mini collapse as we lost 4/12, and again finding ourselves battling at 5/78 at lunch. Amir Marzouk then started to fire, taking the St Ives bowling attack to shreds, finally departing for 87 - his best knock of the season after some great hitting all around the park. Tim Leyshon and Darren Morrow were able to hold out St Ives until Tea, leaving us at 7/187 – over 250 runs ahead with only 30 overs left in the day. The 'mercy rule' was called by St Ives and another massive semi final victory was claimed. This is the fourth year in a row we have made the grand final and we plan on making it our 3rd premiership inside those 4. A top effort today and we look to maintain this momentum heading into the big one next week.

Colts Red 90 and 9/38 lost to Berowra 101 – being such a tight and low scoring game a little bit of luck was needed early on and it just didn't happen. Berowra passed our first innings total with 7 wickets down and were all out a short time later - just 11 runs in the lead. The plan was to get quick runs and get Berowra in to bat and under pressure. It wasn't to be and for the most part due to a devastating spell of bowling by the Berowra opening bowler who tore through our top order and in doing so claimed a hat trick and ensured a well deserved victory for his team. This match was a reflection of our season - close but not close enough with a series of injuries and absences of key players toward the end of the season making it that much more difficult.

B1 80 and 175 lost to Berowra 211 and 1/51 – after a bad day last week we resumed at 4/40 and had it all do chasing Berowra's 211. We started the day slowly trying to grind out a partnership. We managed to go wicketless until drinks taking the score to 4/73, although scoring was tough due to Berowra's quality attack. After drinks the whole innings changed. Matt Thorndyke fell for a hard-fought 34 and it was all down-hill from here losing 6/7 to be bowled out for only 80. With the follow-on enforced we decided to hit out and hope for a fourth innings miracle. Andrew Joyce and Tim Worthington were superb taking the score to 97 in the 16th over before AJ fell for an awesome 61. Tim continued to hit out before falling for 48. After losing these two wickets we fell away losing 4/0 at one stage, once again thanks to their gun spinner on his way to 11 scalps for the match. Some late hitting from Paul Tilley (25) saw us to 175 from 34 overs. Berowra were left with 45 runs for victory. AJ took an early wicket but we were never in the hunt. A disappointing end to an otherwise successful season.

B2 112 and 7/200 dec defeated outright St Ives 181 & 103 – what a day of cricket. Coming into the start of play we still needed 1 wicket to wrap up their first innings, and in the 3 overs it took us to get the last wicket, they clubbed 15 runs, with Ben McNamara taking the last wicket of the first innings to reach figures of 6/53, and saw us staring down a deficit of 69 in the first innings.

With a slightly re-jigged batting order looking for quick runs, we set off with the aim of setting a total, and after just 11 overs we were back with our noses in front thanks to some blistering batting by Geoff Starr (40) and Tim Starr, along with some pretty ordinary discipline in the field from the St Ives boys. A few quick wickets, a small period of consolidation, and another blast with a partnership of 68 between Lachlan McBrien (19*) and Tim Starr, who was dismissed agonizingly short of his first century in seniors for 99, and although disappointing personally for Tim, he had almost single handedly put us in a position where we were a genuine chance to win the game, and for the team that was an absolutely priceless knock, allowing us to declare at 7/200, leaving St Ives with 132 to win from a minimum of 46 overs.

The second innings in the field was a near carbon copy of the first, with fast and accurate spells from Geoff Richards, Ben McNamara and Mark Bennett (1/10 off 7 overs) ripping through the top order and leaving the man-down St Ives struggling at 4/26. However, from here the 2 batsman dug in, resisting playing their natural game and putting on a 60 run partnership in 27 overs to seemingly put them in a position where losing seemed a long way off, and the yelling, laughing and carrying on from their boys on the side indicated they knew this. However, despite needing 5 wickets in the last hour of play, none of our boys gave up, and when Geoff Richards took his 3rd wicket (3/14 off 12 overs) in the over after drinks, everyone sensed we were a real chance. And when James McBrien picked up his first a couple of overs later, the laughing from the sidelines had well and truly stopped. The big moment was yet to come however, and our main man from the first innings Ben McNamara stepped up to claim 2 crucial scalps in 1 over, first an absolute jaffa to rip through the stumps of their captain, and the second a diving catch from James McBrien at square leg to really swing the momentum in our favour. This left us 10 overs to claim the last wicket, and with 6 overs to spare James McBrien (2/8 off 8.5 overs) broke through the solid defences of their final remaining hope to claim an amazing victory against all the odds. Best with the ball for the match was Ben McNamara, who claimed 3/18 off 10 overs for match figures of 9/71 from 23.2 overs, a sensational effort in the high pressure situation of a semi final.

This has got to be one of the most amazing victories of the season, and proves to the competition that we are indeed the best team in the comp, as I’m sure many of the other teams wouldn’t have had the belief in themselves and each other that we had out there that no matter what the game situation, we still believed that we were a chance of winning the game, and we will take that belief and confidence into next week.

C1 54 & 6/77 lost to Castle Hill 220 – last week set the tone for this result. While cricket is a funny game it isn’t hilarious and a win here needed an extraordinary start to the day that didn’t happen. Simply put – 54 was always way too few runs. Day 2 was a much better effort where we bowled well and ended up dismissing Castle Hill for a score that would have been gettable in most other games. Craig Hutchinson was superb taking 5/29 off 19 overs off high quality spin. Backed up by Daniel Anderson with 3/25 the spinners did a wonderful job with great backup by our keeper Gamini who is high quality with sharp catching and stumpings supporting the spinners. John Steel and Andrew Watt were unlucky but also bowled well. With the game over we decided to have a bit of fun after a while, with wickets falling to indiscrete shots, it ceased being fun and the mercy rule was called. Finishing 2nd was a highlight with just a stumble on the 1st day of the Semi that ended what was going to be a memorable year.

C2 44 lost to Mt Colah 210 – following on from last week we managed to bowl Mt Colah out by the middle of day 2. Because of their higher placement on the log we were always going to have to win this one, but Mt Colah were never batting with any purpose and we managed to finally dismiss them in the middle of the day. Mark Bell was our best by a long way with 6/27. Realising that our season was all but over we decided to have a last bash at batting – with everyone getting a license to have some fun. Only Russel Ingram with 19 (in one over) and Peter Lees with 34 bothered the scorers and we were bowled out for 90 in our second innings. This makes it 3 innings in a row that we were bowled out by Mt Colah for under 100 runs. Compare this to an opening partnership of 333 against the same team 5 months earlier – which probably sums up the slump we found ourselves in towards the end of the season, when we should have been shining. Here’s hoping we all have a really good break and return with some more focus in season 10/11.

C3
White 145 lost to Mt Colah 7/148 – a sad end to a great season for the young C3 Whites. Defending 145 on a very fast Greenway was never going to be easy, but when we got an early breakthrough to have Mt Colah 6/53 (after resuming at 5/50) we had to be considered favourites. However we were always wary of their gun U16 Green Shield batter due in next & he lived up to his lofty reputation. He took our bowling to all parts of the ground, and did it so quickly, that the game was over 16 overs later. At least we were first to the pub after the game. So well done fellas - we only lost the first & last games of the season, so can be very proud of our efforts.

Blue 145 defeated Normanhurst/Warrawee 94 – well for all those club punters that lost money on us getting through, I hope that you did not lose too much. Day 2 of the Semi finals, once again showed why we finished up in the top 4 this season, we arrived there with our usual enthusiasm after spending the whole week preparing & analysing a game plan, we did what we always do, that's just "get on with the game".

We were defending what last week seemed to be a meager 145 runs, but after looking at all the results for last week, it was not that bad a result. Normanhurst arrived at the ground full of enthusiasm with their tails in the air and sent in their first 2 batsmen, only to be welcomed by our ever so reliable bowlers Ian Nichol & Rahul Saberwhal, what a welcome that was, as after 11 overs Normanhurst only had 12 runs. Normo lost their first 3 wickets for 12; 17; 18 runs through some clinical bowling. Arun Kumar was in devastating form again.

Our fielding was great, as we gave very little chances and got the ball in quicker than it went out into the field. Claudio van Blerk & Vikas Manchanda chanced their arm at bowling and Vikas was able to bag himself 2 wickets for the day.
Wicket takers were, Arun 4/26; Ian 2/30; Vikas 2/12; Rahul 1/12. I could probably write all day and mention how each player influenced the result yesterday, but it is time to get ready for the final, Great game guys and get to bed early on Friday....

D1 7/240 defeated Berowra 239 – this game is certainly our best performance of the season. The fielding and bowling were outstanding against a very good disciplined Berowra batting line up. The batting was calm and collective to achieve the runs required. Special mention for outstanding batting performances goes to David Behelevanas and Faisal Shamsi for a good opening partnership of 46 against some fine Berowra fast bowling, followed by Lachlan Vile’s 50 retired out and Allan Raffel’s 42, supported by Julian Raffel 26 and Perry Walldron’s 22 not out to get us home. The boys are extremely pleased with everyone’s performances and look ahead to the finals next week.

Finals here we come
We can’t complain about having A1, A2, B2, C3 and D1 in the Finals. While not a record for us it is an outstanding effort especially having 3 of the top 4 Grades in the big one.

Best of luck to the boys next week. Our record in these game is:

A1
Going for our 5th Premiership and our first Finals appearance since 2002/2003 that we won. A special game for Simon Davies who scored his 5,000th run this season and is the only remaining member who played in our last Premiership. A win here will be our 5th Premiership.

A2
Our 4th straight Final and 5th in 6 years is amazing when we have had a strong A1 at the same time. We have momentum and Finals experience.

B2
Going for our 5th B2 Premiership. Our last was in 2000/01 when the great Mark Taylor led the side.

C3
The Competition was only started in the late 1990’s and we have never appeared in a Final until now. So either way Jonathan van Blerk’s team has made Club history.

D1
Going for our 4th Premiership with the last being won in 2003/04 under Roger Friend who also captained the side to victory in 2002/03.

Outstanding leader
There is always one of those people in a Club who achieves amazing things and fly’s below the radar. Matt Jobson A2 Captain is one of those achievers. How about this for an amazing pedigree:
• Outside Colts, Matt is our youngest Premiership winning Captain, leading our A2 side to victory in 2009. Matt had just turned 20
• He now leads A2 into their 2nd successive Final as still the youngest Captain who may well finish with an even more imposing record.
• In 2007/08 as a 19 year old he led A2 to be Runners up so 3 Premiership in a leadership role in one of our top grades before he is 21 years old is truly outstanding.

One of those days
Chapter 1
After each round, our Captains allocate their 3-2-1 points for Player of the Year. One of our Teams had a less than successful game and the Captain commented:

“Are we actually able to take points away from people? Are we able to award points to the scorer? How about the stumps, for bravely remaining intact in spite of all the balls being bowled at it by the WPHCCC bowlers? Or to the brave ball that managed to avoid the outstretched hands of desperate fielders associated with WPHCCC.....”

Chapter 2
Spare a thought for Andrew Fiedler’s C3 White side. They lost 2 games all gear – the 1st game and the last game that just happened to be the Semi Final.

Our very own Warnie
Got to hand it to Rohan Dixit (A2 leg spinner). During day one of the A2 Semi Final, Rohan n had a go umpiring at square leg to support the official umpire. All was going well until everyone on the field heard a ‘beep, beep, beep...’. There was Rohan receiving and sending text messages while umpiring. But then again it was only a semi final so no big deal.

Spot the brain cell
On day 1 of last week’s A1 semi final the match was developing into a real battle with our boys coming out on top. The match was played at Berowra oval which unfortunately has a nearby pub. We all know those moron’s (spectators that is) who walk slowly across the ground to take a short cut and make a statement along the way. We had one of those on the weekend. After being politely asked to leave the field for his own safety by the umpires the bloke continued to take his time. Enter our own Simon Smyth who was playing a very good fighting innings and had his concentration broken. After the umpires were unsuccessful, Simon had a more direct verbal direction that finally got a reaction from this character who wanted to carry it on with 10 of his mates. After the police arrived, photo’s being taken on mobile phones and so on the excitement died down and the boys actually played some more cricket.

Player of the Year
The regular updates have now been closed off for the season with the winner announced at the Presentation Night.

The elite
The latest top 10 cumulative run scorers (Seniors) and wicket takers as at the end of Day 1 of the Semi Finals follows:

Top 10 batsmen
1. 656 @ 65.6 – Russell Ingram (C2 & Colts)
2. 536 @ 35.73 – Sam Thariani (D2)
3. 526 @ 40.46 – Allan Raffel (D1)
4. 524 @ 65.50 – Brendan Harkin (C3 White)
5. 497 @ 38.23 – Tim Millington (B1)
6. 499 @ 55.44 – Claudio van Blerk (C3 Blue)
7. 489 @ 54.33 – Matt Scoular (B1)
8. 475 @ 36.54 – Gavin Taylor (A1)
9. 432 @ 48.00 – Daniel Anderson (C1)
10. 426 @ 53.30 – Lachlan Vile (D1)

Top 10 bowlers
1. 32 @ 13.36 – Rowan Keating (B1)
2. 29 @ 14.90 – Jacques Viser (C2)
3. 28 @ 15.11 – Scott Jobson (B1)
4. 28 @ 15.18 – John Steel (C1)
5. 27 @ 10.56 – Tim Starr (B2)
6. 27 @ 11.11 – Rahul Sabherwal (C3 Blue)
7. 27 @ 11.22 – Darren Morrow (A2)
8. 27 @ 13.93 – Nik Patel (C2)
9. 26 @ 13.92 – Arun Kumar (C3 Blue)
10. 25 @ 11.76 – Matt Dawson (A1)
11. 25 @ 12.56 – Dylan Brogan (A2)

Top 5 catches (non wicket keeping)
1. 9 – Mark Bennett (B2)
2. 9 – James McBrien (B2)
3. 9 – Tim Millington (B1)
4. 9 – Allan Raffel (D1)

Champion Player by Grade
• A1: Gavin Taylor 68.9 points (1st for Club in A1 & 8th in the Grade)
• A2: Matt Jobson 83.0 points (1st for Club & 1st in Association)
• Colts: Michael Dale 54.4 points (1st & 2nd)
• B1: Andrew Joyce 83.8 points (1st & 4th)
• B2: Tim Starr – 72.0 points (1st & 5th)
• C1: John Steel – 90.0 points (1st & 2nd)
• C2: Russell Ingram – 101.6 points (1st & 1st)
• C3: Riley Miedler – 84.4 points (1st & 3rd)
• D1: Allan Raffel – 98.50 points (1st & 2nd)
• D2 Ankit Grover – 94.0 (1st and 4th)

Personal achievements
This is current up to Day 1 of the Semi Final:

Congratulations to Rowan Keating who brought up his 100th wicket in a very successful season.

• Peter Lees – 45 runs to 3,000 runs
• Simon Smyth – 7 wickets to 250 career wickets
• John Steel – 6 wickets to 100 wickets

Gavin Taylor A1 Scored 1000th run Vs Kenthurst @ Kenthurst 28/2/09

Peter Heidegger C2 1,000 runs Vs Hornsby 2 Annangrove 10/10/09

Marco Delgado D1 1,000 runs Vs WPHC Blue @ Northholm Grammar 10/10/09

Alex Connell
B1 2,000 runs Vs Mt Colah @ Mt Ku-ring-gai 11/10/09

Tim Millington
B1 1,000 runs Vs Normanhurst-Warrawee @ Normanhurst Oval 17/10

Matt Jobson
A2 1,000 runs Vs Glenhaven @ Headen Park 24th October

Amir Marzouk A2 250 wickets Vs St Ives @ The Glade 18/10/2009

James McBrien
B2 1,000 runs Vs Hornsby @ Montview East 31/10/2009

Matt Dawson
A1 250 wickets Vs Castle Hill RSL @ Berowra 1/11/2009.

John Mitchell C1 50 wickets Vs Kissing Point @ Mimosa Oval 7/11/2009

Chris Williamson
C2 1,000 runs Vs Castle Hill @ Montview Oval West 15/11/2009

Scott Jobson
B1 100 wickets Vs Berowra @ Thornleigh Park 21/11/2009

Faisal Shamsi
D1 1,000 runs Vs Normanhurst-Warrawee @ Normanhurst Oval 19/12/2009

Greg Stoneham
C1 400 wickets Vs Berowra @ Warrina Street 24/1/2010

Mark Bell C2 50 wickets Vs Normanhurst-Warrawee 2 Glenhaven 23/1/2010

Rowan Keating
B1 • 1,000 runs Vs Normanhurst-Warrawee @ Normanhurst Oval 17/10
• 100 wickets Vs Berowra @ Mt Ku-ring-gai 14/3/2010

Simon Davies
A1 5,000 runs Vs Hornsby @ Storey Park 6/3/2010

Peter Lees
C2 2,955 runs – 45 to 3,000 career runs

Simon Smyth
A1 1,947 runs – 53 to 2,000 career runs

243 wickets – 7 wickets to 250 career wickets

John Steel
C1 94 wickets – 6 wickets

Posted by Ross Anderson on March 21, 2010 06:35 AM