D1 Grade Round 3 (Sun 12 & 19 Oct) v Hornsby at Greenway

WPHC won toss & batted: WPHC 268, Hornsby 70 & 6-204: WPHC won on first innings.

Week 1 (Sun 12 Oct 2008):

Winning the toss and batting WPHC again got off to a strong start thanks to a 108 run second wicket partnership between Brendan Harkin (87) and Faisal Shamsi (49). With these two gone, a middle order collapse had us a bit worried at 6-161, but the strength of our lower order then came to the rescue as Marco Delgado (43) and Luke Christensen (25) put on 65 for the eighth wicket, helping us to finish our innings on a healthy 268.

It was particularly pleasing to see Brendan make good the promise shown in earlier, unfinished innings, while Luke’s 25, his best so far for the club, shows just how well this guy can play once he decides to use his bat, instead of his body, to hit the ball!

Bowling for Hornsby, Alex Ludlow took the honours, with the fine figures of 5-40, Richard Johnson (2-16), Phillip Stannard (1-8), Nitin Paul (1-49) and Ali Mardan (1-52) being the other successful bowlers. A great slips catch by Alex Ludlow showed the high standard of fielding of this keen young Hornsby side.

In the ten overs remaining before stumps the Hornsby openers put on 28 without loss. Although the hoped-for breakthrough eluded us, some brilliant and committed fielding by Chris Milojevic and Luke Christensen amongst others helped keep the run rate down and set the standard for what promises to be a tight and hard fought finish to this match next week.

Week 2 (Sun 19 Oct):

Starting the second day two players short, Hornsby might have been a bit apprehensive but were in no way prepared for what lay in store for them. In the space of just three overs Chris Milojevic single-handedly gutted the Hornsby batting, claiming five wickets for the loss of just four runs. As our other bowlers cleaned up what remained of the tail, Hornsby were dismissed for just 70.

Bowling for WPHC, Chris Milojevic finished the innings with the outstanding figures of ten overs, four maidens, 5-9. Our other successful bowlers were Chris Grima (1-10), Marco Delgado (1-21) and Shankar Ravi (1-24). Our bowlers were assisted by some inspired fielding, notably from Faisal Shamsi, taking three catches in the slips, even managing to snaffle one that bounced out of the hands of Simon Bodley beside him at second slip.

Forced to follow on two men short and two hundred runs behind Hornsby could have been forgiven for caving in or, at the very least, for putting up the shutters early in their second innings. Instead, led by Jon Osborne (44), Ali Mardan (39) and Asim Saleem ( 39, not out), they came out fighting to tax our bowlers to the limit and push this match down to the wire. Another great spell of bowling by Chris Milojevic claimed 4-32 but eventually, as evening and a storm front bore down upon us, we were forced to abandon the hunt for an outright just two wickets short of our goal with Hornsby, finishing on 6-204, reclaiming a respectable share of the honours for this hard-fought game.

The other successful WPHC bowlers in Hornsby’s second innings were Roger Friend (1-30) and Shankar Ravi (1-53), while Roger also equalled Faisal’s tally of three catches for the match, a great one-hander and a heroic caught & bowled showing that the old master certainly hasn’t lost his touch.

This, our first win of the season, is a result we can be well pleased with. Those who may be disappointed that the chance of an outright eluded us need only consider the calibre of our opponents as shown in the gutsy fight-back they staged in their second innings. For our part we have shown that we can match it with them and still come out on top.

Above all this match will be remembered for Chris Milojevic’s outstanding bowling. His final figures for the match were 22 overs, 7 maidens, 9 wickets for 41. Twice he was on a hat-trick, while the quality of his bowling was evident in the fact that no less than six of his wickets were out, bowled. A great performance, Chris, and one that we who saw it will never forget. Well done!

Posted by Peter Westerberg on October 24, 2008 08:40 PM