We arrived at Greenway Oval looking to avenge our defeat to competition leaders Normanhurst the previous round. We were up against Hornsby and we were expecting a good hard game of cricket. Blake lost another toss and we found ourselves bowling the first morning.

We were on top early with Hornsby 5/80 after 22 overs. Then our opposition put together a partnership of 84 for the 6th wicket. This really kept them in the game. We ended up bowling Hornsby out for 201 in the 42nd over. We batted 15 overs to finish 3/48 at stumps on day 1 and the game was evenly poised.

The rain on the 2nd day delayed play for 1 hour as the team officials worked frantically to make the pitch playable. Once underway it started poorly with WPHC losing a wicket in the 2nd over. Alex Rashleigh and Bharat Ramesh glued the innings backed together putting on a quick fire 108 run partnership for the 5th wicket in just 16 overs. The pair didn’t fail to entertain the crowd and at one stage it looked like they were having a competition on who could hit more boundaries. After Alex & Bharat were dismissed the game was back in the balance. But our lower order batsmen came to the fore and we passed their total seven down.

It was great effort by our batsmen in poor batting conditions and an excellent all round team effort. Thanks to Hornsby for playing the game in a great spirit and for making every effort on day 2 to ensure we were able to play.

We need to keep improving if we are to be competitive in the finals.

Man of the Match: Again is Bharat for a gutsy batting effort

Report by Alex Rashleigh

Posted by Peter Andrew Rashleigh on November 19, 2008 10:20 PM