GBHS season over, Horouta and OBR in preliminary semifinal

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

It was always going to be tough.

To qualify for Saturday’s preliminary final, Galaxy World Gisborne Boys’ High School needed to beat Horouta with a bonus point in 50-over premier-grade cricket at the weekend.

Even then, they needed Coastal Concrete OBR’s net run-rate to dip against Bollywood Stars High School Old Boys.

GBHS were placed fourth in the competition with only one win.

Neither the GBHS-Horouta game nor the HSOB-OBR game in Round 7 was held at the weekend due to players being unavailable because of Covid-19.

The preliminary final will now be contested by David Situ’s Horouta and Nick Greeks’s Coastal Concrete OBR on Saturday. The match will start at 12.30pm on Harry Barker Reserve No.1.

The winners will play Carl Shaw’s unbeaten HSOB on March 26.

Poverty Bay director of cricket David Castle said: “Seventeen players across the premier grade were isolating at the weekend due to Covid-19.”

Having had advice from Northern Districts Cricket under New Zealand Cricket, competition management decided to treat both games in Round 7 of the DJ Barry Cup as abandoned matches, not as games lost by default.

“As a result, potentially vulnerable players were not required to come to Harry Barker Reserve,” Castle said.

“And nor were Senior B teams set to play semifinals put in a position of having to fill their clubs’ first-grade teams to their competitive cost.

“The health of the cricket community, general public and the integrity of both our premier and Senior B club competitions was our main concern.”