The 266 total owed its bulk to wicketkeeper-opener Cameron Ingram’s lively 77 off 99 balls, a 62-ball innings of 57 from first drop Louie Love-Parata, No.2 Bradley Wiggins’ 45 off 65 balls, and 38 off 47 by the skipper himself.
Poverty Bay captain Paul Stewart (4-30 off 10 overs) took a hat-trick — Thomas Friskney (2, caught by wicketkeeper Robert Schwass), Nathan McNeish (0, caught by Liam Spring at square leg) and Ryan Hall (0, leg before wicket) — in the 49th over.
Drew Scott, in close at short midwicket, shied and hit the stumps at the non-striker’s end to run Tommaso Pini out for 2 off the last ball of the innings . . . that gave the home team a boost.
The first three Lakelands partnerships (104, 74 and 52) suggested that Poverty Bay might have had to chase 300-plus.
Dutiful seamer Jacob Colbert (3-46 off nine overs) toiled again — his wicket tally stands at nine scalps for the week, in both the T20 and 50-over matches combined.
The quality of the batsmanship from Lakelands was high. Poverty Bay lost wickets regularly from the outset and were five wickets down for 21 runs with the fall of Colbert (5) four balls into the 12th over, Stewart top-scoring for the Bay from No.4 with 20 from 35 balls as firebrand Pini took sweet revenge for the earlier run-out.
Pini took 6-11 in eight overs, three of them maidens, with great support from fellow medium-pacer Ben Astwood (2-6 off four).
Nine Poverty Bay players scored six runs or less with only Stewart (20 off 35), Adam Whibley (14 off 29) and 14 year-old Cohen Loffler (6 off 24) spending four overs or more at the crease.
In reference to their last game today, the seventh/eighth 50-over playoff against the Northern Districts Invitation team, Stewart said: “We need to put our heads down and grit hard with the bat — not throw our wickets away. We also need to bowl in areas where we can take wickets and just work a little bit harder in the field.”
Bay of Plenty Lakelands 266-9 (C Ingram 77, L Love-Parata 57, B Wiggins 45, C Tupaea 38; P Stewart 4-30, J Colbert 3-46) Poverty Bay 68 (P Stewart 20; T Pini 6-11, B Astwood 2-6). Lakelands won by 198 runs.
Bay of Plenty Coastlands 299-4 (T Bettelheim 131, J Logan 86, I Singh 20; S Sola 2-60) Counties-Manukau 181 (T Florence 71; I Singh 3-35, F Dempsey 2-24, J Logan 2-26). Coastlands won by 118 runs.
Hamilton 208 (J Parker 66, H Mellow 39, C Burgess 25; N Parkes 3-17, A Gordon 2-25, B Peck 2-37) Northland 88 (A Gordon 21, C Gordon 20; S Achary 4-15, G Ott 3-6, Z Corban 2-5). Hamilton won by 120 runs.
Waikato Valley b ND Invitation by 74 runs - Waikato Valley 208 (D Hancock 37, N Gray 34, E Sclater 29, T Houston 24, J Collins 24; S Bhaita 3-26, R Kleuskens 2-28, J Pretorious 2-47) ND Invitation 134(R Kleuskens 25, R Herkt 23; R Houston 3-21, D Hancock 3-22, B Sidhu 2-19). Valley won by 74 runs.
