The Watsons Wanganui under-12 cricket team had a narrow, but controlled five run victory over South Taranaki at Victoria Park on Sunday.
After winning the toss Wanganui elected to bat first with Zane Munn and Caleb Jackson getting the team off to a good start. When Jackson fell for 12, Andrew Dickson carried on with Munn who kept finding the boundary in a quick 38 and by the 20th over the side was exactly where the coach had asked them to be at 85/4.
Dickson fell soon after the drinks break for a well-compiled 25 and after a few quick wickets it was let to Carter Hobbs and Shaun O'Leary to get Wanganui back on track. With some excellent running between the wickets and some hard hitting they managed a 60-run partnership in quick time with Hobbs scoring 28 and O'Leary 30.
Both fell quickly together though and it was left to Daniel Burgess to get a quick 12 not out to get Wanganui to 188/8 off their 40 overs.
Wanganui then got off to a great start in the second innings with four quick wickets, two to Ryan Donaldson (3 overs 2-13) and two to Hobbs and suddenly South Taranaki were 44/4 after 12 overs. Then came a patient 100-plus run partnership between two South Taranaki brothers batting together for the first time and things started to look like they were slipping away from Wanganui. But with the departure of the brothers South Taranaki was left with 13 runs required off five overs with four wickets in hand. Hobbs (7 overs 3-20) and Dickson (7 overs 2-18) then came back for two outstanding overs leaving South Taranaki to scramble for nine runs off the final over. Up stepped captain O'Leary (6 overs 1-25) who bowled a very tight over going for only three runs and giving the tight win to Wanganui by 5 runs.