A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.
Challenge Cup T20 cricket hit a new high last night.
Campion College run-machine Reuben Swanepoel, who opens the batting for Campion Gold in the Challenge Cup, followed up his unbeaten 56 in Round 2 with 54 in an epic Round 3 clash against the Gisborne Boys' High School Admiralty.
The Admiralty's Daniel Watts hit 64 in the first innings of a game his crew won by eight runs on Harry Barker Reserve No.2, while GBHS Blues and Royals captain Kelan Bryant scored his maiden Challenge Cup half-century — 59 — against The Life Guards on No.4.
Bryant scored 55 at Hope Cup level a fortnight ago, and the individual scores in the Challenge Cup are a result of all six teams' batting mentality, even where players score fewer than 50.
Admiralty left-hander Kavindu Withanage, coming off a score of 20 not out at No.7 in the GBHS (2) four-run loss to Campion on Saturday, last night made 40 from 67 balls and shared a 94-run stand for the second wicket with opener Watts.
Gold skipper Rhys Grogan made 37 yesterday, having also scored 37 for Campion at the weekend. His drop-and-run method kept Gold in the hunt as they pursued 144 for victory in this latest round.
GBHS captain Alex Shanks won the toss, opted to take first knock and his Admiralty side made 143-4 in 17.2 overs.
Swanepoel took two wickets for one run in eight balls with his tidy off-spin.
In the Gold innings, Gisborne Boys' budding all-rounder Dylan Worsnop (1-29 off four overs) bowled well while Shanks — who has a double fracture of his left thumb — fielded like a one-handed demon. Although he and debutant Muzammil Khan (1-24 in three overs of enticing right-arm slows) were unable to bat for GBHS because of injury, both made an immeasurable difference for their team. Shanks saved at least 10 runs in the field and took 2-8 in two overs.
He caught-and-bowled No.5 Connor Starck — Gold's hero of Round 2 — for nought, second ball, this week. He also had hard-hitting second-drop Felix Sparks stumped by Lukas Fry for 13 with the score at 135, with one ball remaining in the 20th.
Year 12 Jonty Fenn came out to face what was a dot-ball.
Fenn played a great citizenship role in facilitating the contest — he did everything from chase the ball to the boundary as a fielder, score the match on CricHQ, support the bowlers, instruct Gold's player-umpire on best practice at square leg, to keeping his team's batsmen abreast of runs required in the absence of a PBCA competition scoreboard.
First-choice gloveman-cum wicketkeeper Sebastian Wilson was great value for The Admiralty. His positive attitude and energy kept their spirits high in an epic turnaround. Last week they were bowled out for 49 in 8.4 overs by the Tairawhiti Women's Cricket Club.
Shanks had cause to be elated with his seven-man outfit last night: “It was a great game to watch batting-wise — from Dan and Kavindu for us, to Reuben and Rhys for Gold — and Dan stepped it up leadership-wise, as regards talk, from ball one throughout the match. I'm really proud of our team.”
Campion College's Challenge Cup batting arm grows stronger every week.
Campion Green captain Hamish Swann, cruelly undone for 48 last Wednesday by an unplayable inswinger from Daniel Watts, this week scored 50 off 35 balls in his side's seven-wicket win against the TWCC.
Swann was out caught-and-bowled by New Zealand under-19 seamer Kayley Knight (1-11 in seven balls) with two runs required for victory, having put up 111 with his opening partner Liam Spring (50 not out from 34 balls).
Swann is a committed and much-improved all-round cricketer, one of the Poverty Bay junior secondary schools' players to have made significant strides since the representative tournament here in November 2020.
Knight won the toss yesterday and TWCC chose to bat, reaching 112-7 in 16.5 overs.
Grace Levy made a very good 45 at the top of the order and Grace Kuil a high-IQ 31 at No.3. Both seemed at home against the pace of Philburgh Viljoen (1-30 off four overs).
“The Graces batted smart,” TWCC coach Mel Knight said.
Medium-pacers Swann (2-18 off four) and Ramandeep Singh (3-31 off 3.5 overs) were in good form with the ball for Green, but Knight senior identified Elenor Walsh (0-21 off two) as having bowled good line and length. Year 9 Gisborne Girls' High School left-armer Walsh has promise.
Swann and Spring batted superbly, but the magic of cricket that can never be forgotten is that dangerous batsmen can be dismissed at any time and even a suffering bowler's pains can be relieved in an instant: with a wicket.
This is the uncertainty, attraction and flavour of the game.
Swann said: “We always enjoy playing against TWCC — they have great team spirit and are very competitive.
Our whole team fielded well. It was awesome to see our new player — David Liti — take two catches and we look forward to seeing more of our batsmen go up, and step up, next week.”
One of the keys to improvement as a cricketer is consistency.
Life Guards and GBHS (2) second drop Dylan Foster is becoming more consistent: he made 27 at the weekend and yesterday, to lead the Guards' run-scorers.
But good though Foster's latest 27, No.3 Malsha Mahabalage's unbeaten 26 and opening batsman David Gray's 22 were, the team batting first would always have to bowl and field well to defend 124-5 on No.4.
And the Gray-led Life Guards did both, their skipper having won the toss.
For the Blues and Royals, Akira Makiri took 2-19 off four overs, while left-arm orthodox spinner Riker Rolls (1-13 off four), seamer Taylor Scott (1-14 off two) and leg-spinner Jett Whitaker (1-40 off four) all bared their teeth.
In reply, Kelan Bryant's Blues and Royals needed a partnership of substance, such as the 37-run stand for the third wicket between Mahabalage and Foster.
What they got was of another order — 102 from Bryant and Bekko Page (23) at the top of the order — before leg-spinner Foster (1-15 off four) bowled their No.1 with the last ball of the 13th over.
Enter Year 8 all-rounder Marcus Gray. He took 2-22 off 3.3 overs, with Mahabalage (1-17 off two overs) and Jarrod Ormiston (one wicket off one over for one run) as the other wicket-taking pacemen.
Mahabalage ran out Blues and Royals No.6 Taylor Scott — one of four to have scored nought — off the third ball of the 19th over to seal the win.
It may have taken 13 overs for the Life Guards to break through, but after Foster got Bryant, the cricket gods smiled on them. The Blue and Royals were all out for 116. The Life Guards won by eight runs.