A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.
Seven ducks, a sub-100 total — yet they still won.
Although they made life hard for themselves, Civil Project Solutions Ngatapa Green Caps beat the Bollywood High School Old Boys Presidents by nine runs on Saturday.
It was Ngatapa's eighth scalp since October 31.
With potentially five 30-over games left, unbeaten Rawhiti Legal Old Boys Rugby lead the Hope Cup competition on 33 points. Ngatapa have 24, HSOB 18, Siteworx Horouta 15, Campion College nine and Gisborne Boys' High School (2) none.
The Craig Christophers-led OBR beat GBHS by seven wickets in the David and Goliath clash on Harry Barker Reserve No.4, Boys' High captain Dylan Foster having won the toss and opted to bat.
GBHS batted positively but lost wickets at regular intervals. George Gillies (20 runs off 30 balls with three fours) led their run-scorers from No.8. Gillies played his best innings for the side in the past two seasons. He showed intent to score and rotate the strike.
GBHS were nevertheless dismissed for 83 in 19.3 overs, with some of OBR's best bowlers taking a heavy toll. Amit Vyas, master of “the long snapper”, took three wickets with that inswinger around off-stump — but no hat-trick — for 5-19 off five overs, while OBR's new-ball pairing of tall left-armer George Reynolds (3-24 off 4.3 overs) and Lloyd van Zyl (1-18 off six) also did well.
Van Zyl hits the deck pretty hard, and the angle that Reynolds takes bowling over-the-wicket inswing to right-handed batsmen makes him a tricky customer.
A good change-up from Reynolds had Foster caught by wicketkeeper Jannie Jacobs — a one-handed effort back to his right, after the gloveman had headed down the leg side initially.
Gillies was named the Boys' High MVP (most valuable player) for his 20 runs, while OBR second-drop Tama Wirepa picking up their team award for his 16 from 20 balls — a fine effort from a gritty cricketer. The key features of that knock were his concentration in defence and two lusty pull-shots to the boundary at Cow Corner.
OBR's Mana Taumaunu, who had earlier taken 1-19 from four overs, batted at five, got off the mark but fell in classic fashion two balls later to another leg-spin bowler: Dylan Foster (1-12 off two overs). Coming out to drive, Taumaunu was bowled through the gate with a wrong 'un.
Bekko Page (1-22 off three overs) and left-armer Lukas Fry (2-10 off three) were the other Boys' High wicket-takers, OBR reaching 84-4 at the completion of 15 overs.
In reference to good cricket being played by both teams, OBR skipper Christophers said: “I asked our bowlers to bowl an attacking line and they did — I was proud of them — and Tama showed his talent with the bat. It's been great to see his improvement this year.
“For Boys' High, George Gillies batted intelligently and Bekko Page saved a lot of runs in the field with his commitment on the boundary.”
Green Caps captain Mike Gibson won the toss on HBR 3 but HSOB quicks Jason Lines (2-2) and Yegan Lanka (2-7) applied vice-like pressure first-up in an eight-over block. They both began with wicket-maidens and bowled three and two maidens respectively.
Ngatapa's first four batsmen — Grant Walsh, Hamish Briant, Jeremy Castles and Cam McNaught — are all good cricketers, yet all made ducks before Gibson (58 from 57 balls, with eight fours) at five and Will Faulks (25 off 40, two fours) at six knuckled down to the task.
The Gibson-Faulks partnership, the biggest of the match, realised 67 runs before Faulks fell to seamer Mahmood Ghaznavi (2-18 off 4.4 overs).
The sixth man in keeper-captain Ollie Needham's all-pace attack, Kyle Jean-Louis, then took 4-16 off four overs in an MVP performance for Presidents.
The return gained by Jean-Louis highlighted the immense value of steady line and length, allowing for movement of the ball in the air and off the pitch.
Ngatapa, dismissed for 98 in 23.4 overs, then dug deep into their box of bowling and fielding tricks. They produced a man-by-man effort of grand proportions with the ball to make up for their paucity of runs.
Left-armer Faulks (1-31 off five overs) was first to strike, dismissing HSOB No.2 Kanamik Khan (four runs), leg before wicket. Gibson (2-30 off five) then got left-hander Baljeet Sandhu — third man to bat — lbw for four. Gibson bowled No.5 batsman Jeff Chambers with the score then 49-3, one ball into the ninth over. The 10 runs scored by Chambers constituted the Presidents' second-highest individual score of the day.
Ben Holden, who does just enough with the ball both ways, then took 2-9 off two overs before Grant Walsh (3-9 off 4.5) bowled opener Needham for 36. Presidents were then 75-6, and drinks were taken with two balls remaining in the 15th over.
Walsh's fellow off-spinner Jeremy Castles then grabbed 2-9 in three overs before Walsh winkled Jean-Louis and Lanka out. No.11 Billy Stackhouse was left unbeaten on one as HSOB were done at 89 in 19.5 overs.
Ngatapa had worked wonders to fight back and win the 2 v 3 scrap.
HSOB chose opposition skipper Gibson as the Caps' MVP for his crucial innings of 58, the highest individual score in the match and the game's most important knock.
Needham said: “The combination of a veteran Ngatapa bowling attack, sharp catching — along with our poor shot-selection and lack of composure — saw us bundled out with almost 10 overs in hand and left to rue what might have been.”
Rarely does Campion College's player-coach not stump up with runs; he did so again on Saturday with 52 from No7.
The college reached 121-9 from 30 overs batting first in a five-wicket loss to Horouta. Simply put, no one bar Naden got going for Campion.
Horouta captain Mel Knight won the toss on HBR 1, chose to bowl, and The Waka bowled well.
New Zealand under-19 pace bowler Kayley Knight took 2-21 — the big wickets of opposition skipper Liam Spring caught behind by Northern Districts u19 teammate Rubi Perano for five, and later that of Naden, lbw.
Left-arm orthodox spinner Clarence Campbell (2-19), bowling first-change, had Spring's opening partner Reuben Swanepoel lbw for 11 and nippy Grace Levy (2-31) accounted for a genuine match-winner in big left-hander Daryl Dunn (10) and the recently well-perfomed Luke Hurlstone (8), who came in at three and four respectively.
Campion lost three wickets (Hurlstone, Swanepoel, Rhys Grogan first ball) with the score at 39 before No.5 Matt King (11) and Naden shared a partnership of 41 runs.
Knight junior, Campbell and Levy all bowled six overs, as did warrior Greg Taylor, who did a great job for The Waka with 1-16, maiden over included.
Taylor then made a bright 25 from 24 balls as second-drop, and the no-nonsense hitting of the bad ball for four was highlighted by Horouta's MVP Perano (42) at No.5. Kayley Knight (30) and Mike Tapp (one run) saw The Waka home in 24.3 overs despite quality new-ball bowling from Campion's Grogan (1-15 off six overs, with two maidens).
Year 10 student and swing bowler Grogan shared the new cherry with Y13 Hurlstone (2-31 from six overs). Spring (1-42 off five) and Y9 Connor Starck (1-13 off 2.3) also took wickets for Campion.
Naden, the college's MVP for the match, has a glass-half-full philosophy
“We're proud we got 40 more runs against Horouta this time around than we did the time before, but we were still 30-odd short,” he said.
“They've now won the Naden-Taylor Trophy four times, we've won it twice, so we need to get that back. It was great to see Greg back out of retirement and we're all proud to see Kayley, Rubi and Grace make ND and New Zealand teams from Gizzy.”