BOWLED ‘EM: Ngatapa's Zac Borrie had a day to remember as he took a hat-trick on his way to earning five wickets in his team's loss to HSOB. Picture by Paul Rickard
Ngatapa medium-pace bowler Zac Borrie took a hat-trick against High School Old Boys Presidents in Hope Cup cricket on Saturday.
HSOB won the game, though, handing the Senior B Grade competition leaders their first loss of the season.
Borrie took 5-37 off six overs against last year's champions, the Ollie Needham-led Bollywood Stars HSOB.
Borrie's hat-trick came off the first three balls of the 30th over. He bowled first-drop Matt Jefferd for 56, then had No.8 Kyle Jean-Louis caught at the wicket by Cam McNaught and then had Nick Armour caught by Aidan Starck at midwicket.
With this “five-for”, Civil Project Solutions assistant project manager Borrie, 23, joins teammate and off-spinner Grant Walsh and Gisborne Boys' High School (2) spearhead Akira Makiri on 15 wickets.
Campion College's Rhys Grogan and Rawhiti Legal OBR left-armer George Reynolds are the competition's leading wicket-takers on 17 and 20 respectively.
The HSOB Presidents' 62-run victory in Saturday's Round 11 game avenged their eight-wicket loss to the Civil Project Solutions Ngatapa Green Caps on December 11.
Wicketkeeper captain Needham won the toss on Harry Barker Reserve No.1 and chose to bat.
Three mid-range contributions (22 from Needham at No.1, 56 from Jefferd and 31 from Jeff Chambers at No.4) allowed the blue-and-whites to post 183-9.
Ngatapa's run-chase ended at 121 in 23.5 overs. HSOB first- and second-change seamers Nick Armour (4-30) and Yegan Lanka (2-28) both bowled out and Billy Stackhouse, the sixth bowler used, took 2-5 from two overs.
Only classy opener Charles Morrison, who hit five boundaries from 28 balls for 34 in 33 minutes at the crease, was at all settled. Ngatapa captain Mike Gibson, whose side cruised to victory with six overs to spare when the teams met in December, said Borrie's last over was “awesome”.
“It's just a pity we couldn't back up his effort with the ball with the bat,” Gibson said.
Borrie beat Stackhouse — who in addition to taking 2-5 also held a catch to dismiss Borrie and ran out Starck to end the game — to be the CricHQ MVP (most valuable player).
Ngatapa's McNaught also had an excellent game, his four catches shooting him to the top of the fielding leaderboard with 10 catches overall. Campion 'keeper Daniel Baillie has eight catches. Horouta gloveman Riley Horsfield has held six and has effected three stumpings.
Needham (four catches overall) held two catches and made a stumping (two overall) in addition to his fighting 22. He was proud of Presidents' match-effort.
“That was a satisfying team performance, and showed what we're capable of on our day,” he said.
“Matt (Jefferd) and Jeff (Chambers) helped to set us up for a good total batting first.
“In the Ngatapa innings, the easing of fielding restrictions (only two men are allowed outside the 30-metre circle from overs 1 to 6) and the introduction of Nick (Armour) and Yegan (Lanka) allowed us to build pressure, stem the flow of boundaries and then take the big wickets.”
Rarely do Horouta — or any other team — trounce OBR.
But on Saturday Te Waka, under Mel Knight, beat OBR by 151 runs, a record winning margin for Horouta against one of the competition's strongest sides.
OBR, as stalwarts of local cricket, have accommodated other clubs to facilitate cricket in the past. On Saturday, they took Ben Langford and Zyden Worsnop of Gisborne Boys' High School into their ranks. Langford (3-33) shared the new ball with his game-day captain Lloyd van Zyl, bowled out and opened the batting; Worsnop took 1-33 in four overs as the sixth bowler used, and batted at No.3.
They were given a decent crack of the whip.
Knight and company, the captain having won the toss on HBR 4, had the whip-hand on Saturday.
The Waka made 197-9, with Chaitanya Sambare playing a stupendous innings of 86, with 15 boundaries, off 57 balls, in 79 minutes from No.4. Grace Levy's unbeaten 30 and Billy Morse's 28, batting at No.8 and No.7 respectively, were top knocks in the context of the game. That type of team-first play is typical of Horouta.
Morse shared a 56-run partnership with Sambare for the sixth wicket. Horouta had been in a potentially sticky situation at 89-5. The drinks break was taken three balls into the 15th over, with young seamer Jonah Reynolds (2-21 in 3.3 overs at that stage) sitting on a hat-trick.
Langford was OBR's main striker on the day, although Worsnop took the king wicket of Sambare, bowled.
Horouta's bowlers were more miserly.
First-change seamer Levy (2-4) and left-arm orthodox spinner Clarence Campbell (2-8) got through three overs each but leg-spinner Vinay Patel (3-14), a whirling dervish of the wrist, mopped up the tail in 2.5 overs.
Bowlers like Patel can be great for captains to have up their sleeve. They are unpredictable, can produce a wicket and need bowl no more than one over.
Knight was impressed by her players' batsmanship, while admitting that her star bowler on the day was an unknown quantity, if not a handful: “Riley (Horsfield) as 'keeper and myself at slip had no idea what the ball was doing for Vinay. Chaitanya (Sambare) is a genuine cricketer and in the first innings, Grace (Levy) played inventive shots to exploit the gaps or hit the ball where there were no fielders.”
OBR were dismissed for 46 in 17.5 overs and Mana Taumaunu, with 13 from No.4, was their only batsman to score in double-figures.
Sambare and Langford were their teams' CricHQ MVPs, in a most entertaining and eventful game played in particularly fine spirit.
Van Zyl said: “It was a great day's cricket — thanks to those who made the game possible — and it was great, too, to be able to give each player some action with the ball, in the field and with the bat.”
Challenge Cup success does not necessarily translate into Saturday afternoon runs.
Campion College, well-led by Hamish Swann, beat Gisborne Boys' High School (2) by four wickets on the back of superb bowling from Connor Starck (4-15 off six overs), Rhys Grogan (3-30 off 4.5 overs) and skipper Hamish Swann (2-17 off five overs).
Bested in economy only by Starck, Taye McGuinness bowled out with 1-21 after GBHS skipper George Gillies won the toss and chose to bat on the practice wicket.
Boys' High were bowled out for 95 in 24.5 overs.
Malsha Mahabalage, batting at No.7, batted well for 21, his highest score in senior club cricket to date. He timed some nice drives between point and cover fielders only 15m or so from the bat, and also past cover's right hand.
Boys' High opening pair Dylan Torrie and Gillies, and No.4 gloveman and left-hander Kavindu Withanage, all made half-centuries in Round 1 of Wednesday Challenge Cup play but on Saturday, Nathaniel Fearnley, who came in at No.3, returned the highest top-order score: 17.
Five players made nought, due in equal measure to the good line and length kept by the bowlers, fine wicketkeeping from Dan Baillie (three catches) and some tentative batting.
Campion ran down the Boys' High total in 21 overs.
Left-armer Caleb Taewa took 3-10 off three overs. He was pinpoint accurate and swung the ball in late to the right-handers, yorking both No. 4, and No.3, Starck and Aiden Armstrong.
Arlo Willis, like Taewa a Year 9 student, took 1-6 off two overs — one of them a maiden — on debut.
Attack spearhead Akira Makiri and outstanding left-arm orthodox spinner Riker Rolls both conceded only nine runs in three overs.
Gillies said that Makiri and Fearnley were tight and did a good job with the new ball.
All four are in bowling form ahead of the colts' interschool matches against Napier BHS in Gisborne on Monday and Tuesday next week. Starck and Taewa were the CricHQ MVPs for the match.