Page 20 - West Pennant Hills Cherrybrook Cricket Club

What a tremendous and fitting end to the season. Both teams demonstrated exceptional teamwork and sportsmanship over the past 2 days, and particular thanks goes to Castle Hill for the genuine goodwill that they brought to the contest and the way in which they fought right to the end. And a huge thanks to all the friends, family and teammates from across WPHC who came down to support the boys in their pursuit of the title. It made a great difference to team morale and the wisdom and advice from other senior club members was particularly welcome today.
To our team, congratulations! You have worked hard to support each other throughout the year, and played great cricket in the progress. A well-deserved title, and you all should be proud of your efforts. Let’s do it all again next year.
And the final callout goes to Phill Hando, who has worked tirelessly for us throughout the year as our skipper, our coach, our manager and our mentor. You’ve done an outstanding job all season and have the gratitude from all of us for the efforts you’ve put in to ensure we’re at our best each week. Big big thanks to you, we’ve been lucky to have you steering the ship.
Back row:
Steve Ozvatic, Scott Chapman, Tom Hando, Peter Lee (Umpire), Tim Worthington, Phill Hando (Captain), Damien Lewis (Umpire), Basil Butler, Sam Hando
Front row:
Ben Dunkerley, Cameron Bliss, Alec Silins, Campbell Wallace, Jack Hando, Harry Hando
Absent: Mithun Mithun
C2 Grade
WPHC Blue (Buzz) 60 & 9 dec. 101 lost outright to Thornleigh 69 & 4/95 Day 1
Wow! What a day.
I think we all ran through most possible emotions today, from excitement to despair and then back through to belief.
With Thornleigh winning the toss, they still had to have a pow wow to decide what to do. Whilst Buzz was telepathically sending messages for them to bat, unfortunately they sent us in. There was some good bowling from the Opposition, but we just kept losing wickets at the wrong moments, and many of our batsman would love to have that split second back again to play different shots I’m sure.
Xander Vink stood almost alone in putting together one of the best innings of the season, especially given the fall of wickets around him. His 26* was invaluable and showed what was possible as the rest of the side folded for only 60 all out. I’m pretty sure Garry (those in the know will recognise our biggest canine supporter) was there to see him do so well.
For some unknown reason, teams playing in the Grand Final play two days of 80 overs a day instead of the usual 70 overs in every other two day match in the season. For those who have graced the playing grades of C Grade and lower, you will know that 160 overs is a very long time for teams of this level to play out. That being said, it may just be the saviour we need. Knowing there was so much time left in the match gave us the drive to know all was not lost from one bad display at the batting crease and that this game had more twists and turns to come.
Knowing the Opposition had one stand out batsman, we looked to tie him up early and challenge him with something different, so opened the attack with Paul Vink and Buzz to see if we could challenge him early with some variation of pace and style of bowling.
19