Page 23 - WPHCC 2023-2024 Cricket Season Yearbook

Grand Final Reports
B2 Grade
WPHC (Warren) 120 & 4/32 defeated outright St Ives-Wahroonga 42 & 109 Day1–WPHC120VsStIves6/36
After last weeks heroics by Zac ‘the best Turner’ Turner and Dan ‘Martin Ssempa’ Schwartzel we came into this week Grand Final confident yet weary. Our number 1 priority being not to repeat the stress and anxiety that last week produced by playing some good cricket and not relying on two players to do all of the work. More on that later.
After spending the entire week collectively edging ourselves the boys arrived at Thornleigh oval rock hard and ready to bust. You could smell the pheromones in the air. The boys could not be more hard. The premiership would be ours if all we did was produce our best across the team and not rely on 1-2 players to do all the work with the bat. Remember - we aren’t repeating last weeks effort.
Warren ‘big dog’ Schwartzel unfortunately lost the toss and St Ives put us in to bat. No worries, good toss to lose.
Over number 2 Ray cops a lowie and gets trapped in front LBW for the exact same score he got last week - starting to look a lot like last week. Adam continues his run of uselessness by nicking off to gully for a well-earned duck - starting to look a lot like last week. Not to worry though - Cameron ‘steady the ship’ Bish was coming in to steady the ship and steady the ship he looked like doing until missing a straight one - you guessed it, exactly like he did last week. 3/20 off we were - looking a lot like last week.
Fast forward 5/50 odd!
In what can only be described as a tumultuous year with the bat whereby no one has really put their hand up in our team and showed any sort of consistency (really our bowlers have saved our bacon for us all year) there has been but one shining light for WPHCCCCCCC B2s. That being Zac ‘the edge lord’ Turner.
Zac showed grit, determination, gumption, rock hardness and patience to EDGE his way to a 50 which on any other ground may be 100. Zacs last 3 innings have produced over 200 runs and Zac has faced over 5000 balls this season for his 600 odd runs. We truly have Zac to thank for our success this year - without his efforts we probably aren’t playing in a grand final. Due to Zacs efforts this week we EDGED our way to a slightly under par but extremely defendable 120 on a slow slow, slow Thornleigh field.
We had 90 minutes to bowl at St Ives which produced 6 wickets for a mere 36 runs. With Nathaniel ‘big nuts’ Chidgey producing a spell of line and length bowling which the batsmen couldn’t help but EDGE through to Cameron Bish taking 3 of the better catches you will see.
We are in an excellent position however St Ives have 2 batsmen who can hold a bat in as we speak. Tomorrow will be extremely interesting - make sure you get down to support the boys in their efforts to EDGE out St Ives and win a premiership.
Thanks to all that came to support today - we appreciate you. @Anush and @Alex Chidgey, you guys truly suck.
More to come tomorrow.
Day 2
Dear Loyal readers of the best team in Association (source Ross Anderson), this is the moment you have all been waiting for.
The ultimate decider.