Boost for HSOB

A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.

The first session of play in Premier Grade club cricket at the Harry Barker Reserve tomorrow is all-important.

The crunch session of OBR-HSOB on the No.2 ground and Horouta-GBHS on the representative wicket may be that between 11am-1pm on Day 2 of Round 2 in the DJ Barry Cup two-day championship.

Dave Castle has welcomed into Bollywood High School Old Boys' unit dashing all-rounder Baxter Mackay and left-arm opening bowler Keegan Jooste for Marshall Norris and Buddhika Kumarage.

Medium-pace bowler Kumarage took 2-12 from five overs, including two maiden overs, on Day 1 and is a loss.

Coastal Concrete Old Boys Rugby captain Matthew Cook confirmed that they will make changes to their side, but at time of writing could not confirm how many.

"Our openers laid a platform and we batted time, but we need to be more productive," said Jarrod Ormiston, whose Boys' High co-captain of last weekend — David Gray — will assume the top job with regular skipper Bekko Page still overseas. "It wasn't always easy to time the ball last Saturday, but Horouta are in now with 11 more overs in which to score. Then we have get in, we have to adapt and we have to score."

The hope for GBHS will be that left-arm spearhead Johny Gray and his fellow bowlers can take the last Te Waka wicket as soon as possible, and then Gisborne Boys' promising top-order can aid the cause with more than 76 . . . their first innings total. Fearnley, his new opening partner Malsha Mahabalage, David Gray and Alex Shanks have heavy lifting to do in the absence of the left-handed Ormiston, who of late has made runs but is unavailable this weekend.

Horouta captain David Situ is, like Matt Cook of OBR-HSOB fame, unsure of the number of personnel changes that The Waka may have to make.

Situ is of a mind to see his crew make as many runs for the last wicket as they can, then bowl well and tighten the screws on GBHS.

HSOB skipper Castle said: "We have a simple target of taking the last two OBR wickets first-up; we know too that Hayden Keast is a classy player, and that he won't give his wicket away easily.

“If we do get first innings, our plan is to bat the day away with guys being given time to bat long and build batting momentum.

“We don’t want to give OBR a sniff of beating us from this position, so to then bat time is the order of the day.

“We don't expect OBR to roll over, so we'll need to be at our best to make sure that we do the small things well."

Conversely, OBR skipper Matt Cook has stated that his lads — who will definitely count Keast, Amit Vyas, Jimmy Holden, Daniel Stewart, and Te-Reimana Gray once more among their number — need to bat as much of the 26 overs available as possible, while trying to reduce the deficit of 118.

SENIOR B GRADE 30-OVER HOPE CUP COMPETITION —

Saturday, January 20, 2024

Harry Barker Reserve, Ground No.1, 2pm: Breakers Horouta Te Waka v Bollywood High School Old Boys'.

Ground No.3: Civil Project Solutions Ngatapa Green Caps v the Gisborne Boys' High School second 11.

Ground No.4: The Campion College first 11 versus Rawhiti Legal Old Boys' Rugby.