Poverty Bay get home in last-ball thriller at ND Under-19 cricket tournament

The Poverty Bay team who had two wins at the Northern Districts Rangatahi Emerging Tane Under-19 cricket tournament in Gisborne last week are, back row (from left): Jonah Reynolds, Patrick McInnes, Johnny Gray, Keanu Makiri, Nathaniel Fearnley and Connor Starck. Front: Joel Kirkpatrick, Caleb Taewa, Charlie Whitfield, captain Taye McGuinness, Riker Rolls and Bekko Page. Joey Turner and James Birrell coached and managed the side.

Poverty Bay ended the Northern Districts Rangatahi Emerging Tāne Under-19s cricket tournament on a high with a nail-biting win over Bay of Plenty Lakelands.

The Taye McGuinness-led PB team won a T20 thriller by just one run at Gisborne’s Harry Barker Reserve – a victory that looked unlikely halfway through BoP’s run chase.

The visitors appeared in control at 72-2 in the 12th over – chasing the home side’s 105-7 – but tight bowling in the latter overs put the acid on a BoP side in search of their first win of the week-long tournament.

Needing five runs off the 20th over, it was still in favour of BoP, only for Poverty Bay medium pacer Jonah Reynolds to step up.

Having already taken three of the four wickets BoP had lost, Reynolds conceded only two runs from his opening five balls, and a run-out going for a game-tying second run from the final delivery gave PB a memorable win.

Earlier, Nathaniel Fearnley anchored the PB batting effort with an excellent 46 off 52 balls, including five fours, at the top of the order.

McGuinness (21 off 17, with four fours) and Reynolds (18 off 22) contributed vital runs.

Jai Poonia made 43 off 44 for BoP before being the last wicket to fall on the last ball.

It was Poverty Bay’s second win of the tournament, having beaten Northern Māori by one wicket in a 50-overs match on Day 3.

Northern Māori had a great final day, winning both their matches to jump ahead of PB into sixth place on the ladder on run rate.

Waikato Valley were the stand-out team of the week, winning all seven matches.

The ND age group representative action continued with the Rangatahi Youth Tāne U17 tournament in Hamilton this week.

The Poverty Bay team competing are Charlie Castles, Cody McMurray, Joel Kirkpatrick, Patrick McInnes, Robbie Newlands, Harvey Reynolds, Finnbar Whitfield, Gayesha Mahabalage, Raffaele Colucci, Brandon Fearnley, Jack Williams and Pranash Senthooran. Martin Worndl is coach and Graeme Newlands is manager.

Kirkpatrick and McInnes played for PB in the ND U19s tournament, as did Johnny Gray, who is in the Northern Māori team at the U17s.

All three were also involved in the Poverty Bay Premier Grade Doleman Cup club cricket final on Saturday.