Gisborne teenage cricketer achieves double hat-trick and century in space of 5 days

Harvey Reynolds achieved a rare double hat-trick in Poverty Bay club cricket on Saturday and followed it up with a century in the Challenge Cup secondary school competition on Wednesday.

What a past five days it has been for Gisborne teenager Harvey Reynolds.

On Saturday, the Sonrise Christian School student joined an elite group when he took four consecutive wickets – a double hat-trick – in the Poverty Bay Reserve Grade Hope Cup competition at Harry Barker Reserve.

On Wednesday, he scored an unbeaten century in the secondary schools T20 Challenge Cup at Nelson Park.

Harvey, 15, usually plays for Coastal Concrete OBR in the Poverty Bay Premier Grade club competition on Saturdays.

But his side defaulted their game to Bollywood HSOB due to a lack of numbers, so Harvey was seconded to a depleted Gisborne Boys’ High School Second XI for their Hope Cup Round 3 game against Pioneer Ngatapa Green Caps.

Harvey came in as the second-change bowler and was clouted by Ngatapa opener Hoffman Haasbroek for three consecutive fours to end the eighth over of the Green Caps’ pursuit of 138.

But the leg spinner and Poverty Bay age-group representative struck back ... and then some.

Harvey took a double hat-trick with the first four balls of his next over. He bowled Tim Fox, Jacque Davis and Andrew Kirkpatrick, before veteran Mike Hope held a catch in close on the onside to remove Edward Nepe.

Harvey finished with five wickets for 29 runs off five overs as GBHS won by 13 runs.

Earlier, he scored 27 runs and shared an opening partnership of 67 with Cody McMurray.

Harvey is captain of The King’s Own team in the Challenge Cup.

He won the toss against Admiralty, chose to bat and scored 101 retired off 51 balls. He shared a 151-run partnership with Jake Kirkpatrick as King’s Own scored 181-2 and went on to win by 64 runs.

GBHS Second XI coach and Poverty Bay Cricket patron Ben O’Brien-Leaf, who also runs the Challenge Cup, said it would require “a Herculean feat of research” to confirm if Harvey’s bowling feat had been done before in 130 years of Poverty Bay club cricket, but there would have been “few, if any”.

“Harvey has come a long way,” O’Brien-Leaf said. “He has always been a lively and committed cricketer, willing to step up and help younger cricketers to develop.”

Harvey comes from a cricketing family. Father George played for OBR, brother Jonah was also with OBR before transferring to Gisborne Boys’ High School First XI this year, and sister Faith is a Poverty Bay age-group rep.