A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.
They can’t afford to go all out just yet.
With two weeks to play before the Christmas break, the six sides in 30-over Senior B Grade club cricket have different priorities.
Hope Cup holders the Bollywood Stars High School Old Boys Presidents must turn their season around. Like Gisborne Boys’ High School (2), they have one competition point for the match abandoned on November 6 and have lost five games ahead of Round 7.
They are ahead of GBHS (2) on differential, as differential seats the Civil Project Solutions Ngatapa Green Caps (High School Old Boys’ opponents on Harry Barker Reserve No.3 tomorrow at 2pm) behind Rawhiti Legal OBR (13pts), who also have four wins.
While the Presidents know their task tomorrow calls for grit and a willingness to grind with the bat, the schools’ derby between GBHS and Campion College on the practice wicket could be a beauty.
College Year 13 students Luke Hurlstone and Jonty Fenn will look to support game-day captain Hamish Swann and his promising young team.
The Mark Naden-coached Campion beat HSOB Presidents by nine wickets on November 20 and their match-winner that day — Rhys Grogan, with 5-24 — has consistently bowled as well as any other seamer in the Grade.
For Boys’ High, two big things happened last week that they had needed to see: one of the top-order batsmen, Kelan Bryant, made a half-century (54 at first drop). They also put up 100-plus runs as a unit. They don’t lack for bowlers or for commitment in the field.
Campion have three points, Horouta The Waka have nine points, and the Mel Knight as skipper of the latter knows better than to expect a second 95-run margin of victory — as against GBHS — in a fortnight.
Knight and co know it’s like to be on the other end of a 95 run-loss: specifically, versus OBR. OBR’s winning margins against The Waka in the clubs’ last three encounters have been 95 runs, 143 runs, and 10 wickets in last season’s 1 v 4 semi-final.
“OBR are a challenge but if we bowl well, we give ourselves a chance,” said Knight. “Their being a quality side, we’ll need to take those chances, too.”
In the lead-up to the penultimate round in this the first half of the season, Christophers visualised his lively medium-pacer Sean Henry sending the ball down tomorrow at 130km and Olly Garland on the drive hard through cover (as he did at No 4 against Campion a fortnight ago, with six boundaries in an innings of 26).
Those tongue-in-cheek musings may, at least in part, be a danger to Horouta. Christophers has nominated Henry and Garland as OBR’s two players to watch out for and OBR are a powerhouse in the grade.
Standings and points have OBR go into that clash with the green and gold on HBR 4 as favourites while Presidents captain Ollie Needham is happy enough with the prospect of a match with the Green Caps: “Playing Ngatapa is always a challenge, as they tend to have depth with both bat and ball — alongside some of the Hope Cup’s best in Ryan West, Grant Walsh and Zac Borrie.
“They’re a good fielding side who hold their catches, top blokes off the field.”
OBR: Thom Berry (wkp), Craig Christophers (c), Olly Garland, Sean Henry, Matt Lotar Mcfatter, George Reynolds, Rongomai Smith, Peter Stewart, Mana Taumanu, Lloyd van Zyl, Phil Viljoen, Amit Vyas.
Horouta: Etienne Botes, Clarence Campbell, Riley Horsfield (wkp), Grace Levy, Aman Kamboj, Mel Knight (c), Grace Kuil, Piumal Madasanka, Nathan McLoughlin, Mike Tapp.
HSOB Presidents: Nic Armour, Jeff Chambers, Nathaniel Fearnley, Isaac Hughes, Kyle Jean-Louis, Mahmood Khan, Anil Kumar, Jason Lines, Ollie Needham (c, wkp), Nathan Quimpo, Yegan Lanka.
Ngatapa Green Caps: Zac Borrie, Richard Briant, Jeremy Castles, Will Faulks, Ben Holden (c), Chris Hurlstone, Cam McNaught (wkp), Charles Morrison, Grant Walsh, Ryan West, George Whitehead, Harry White.
Campion College: Aiden Armstrong, Daniel Baillie (wkp), Izahn Duckworth, Jonty Fenn, Rhys Grogan, Luke Hurlstone, Taye McGuinness, Gagandeep Singh, Manjot Singh, Ramandeep Singh, Connor Starck, Hamish Swann (c).
Gisborne BHS (2): Kelan Bryant, Lukas Fry (cc), George Gillies, Gareth Langford, Malsha Mahabalage, Akira Makiri, Jarrod Ormiston, Bekko Page (cc), Riker Rolls, Dylan Torrie, Kavindu Withanage (wkp), Dylan Worsnop.