Low-scoring cricket was the way of it in Round 5 of the Hope Cup on Saturday.
Competition leaders Civil Project Solutions Ngatapa Green Caps and Bollywood High School Old Boys Presidents both picked up their fourth win and Horouta Te Waka, their second with victory over Campion College.
Ngatapa had an enjoyable outing against the Gisborne Boys’ High School second 11 (six points). Green Caps co-captains Ryan West and Charles Morrison brought the side home with the bat. Their winning margin was three wickets.
GBHS skipper Nathaniel Fearnley had won the toss on Harry Barker Reserve No.2 and his outfit posted their highest team total of the season so far, 121-6 in 30 overs.
No.1 Akira Makiri top-scored with 25, sixth-man-in Caleb Taewa made 21 and Fearnley at first drop was in fair form for 20. All three played some pure cricket shots, and Makiri’s knock was a breakthrough innings. He timed the ball beautifully.
Before this match, Boys’ High had struggled with the bat. Their modest total in this game had as much to do with over-caution as tidy bowling from the Caps, whose best was off-spinner Morrison with 2-9 from three overs.
Boys’ High then made a special effort in reducing the No.1 team in Senior B cricket to 44-7 in 12.1 overs.
Left-armers Jack Holden (3-19 from seven overs) and Caleb Taewa (1-28 from five), outswing bowlers Brandon Fearnley (1-13 from four) and Keanu Makiri (1-8 from two) held to good lines.
Zyden Worsnop in the gully held the sharpest catch of the match to dismiss old hand Grant Walsh (6, from No.7) from Keanu Makiri’s first ball. GBHS had the opposition in trouble, if not on the run, at 7-44 in 13 overs.
This brought the Ngatapa co-captains together: West at No.9 made 28 and Morrison, eighth man to bat, stroked his way to 19. Their match-winning partnership of 80 for the eighth wicket was a sterling example of good batsmanship: at the core of which lay a sense of urgency and skilful placement of the ball.
West was impressed by what he saw from the second 11.
“Brandon (Fearnley, 11 not out from No.8) batted really well, and then in the first 20 overs of our innings they bowled beautifully.
“From my umpiring position at the bottom end of No.2, the left-armers Caleb (Taewa) and Jack (Holden), were a great watch.”
Horouta make short work of chasing low totals.
And that’s what they did in beating Campion College by seven wickets in 21.2 overs on No.3.
Campion captain Hamish Swann won the toss and chose to bat. The College were then held to 95-7 in 30 overs.
Bustling medium-pacer James Craig (3-7 from four overs) and opening bowler Grace Levy (2-19 from six overs) set the standard for line and length.
Swann, his team’s No.1, made their highest individual score of 26 from 37 balls — a bright and busy innings. The next two best scores came from Connor Starck (18, coming in at No.5) and first drop Aiden Armstrong (17).
Taye McGuinness, who came in at No.7 but has a top-order player’s desire to bat and make runs, finished on 10no. His dedication — if not yet his scores — is of a top-five type.
The wife-and-husband combination of Te Waka skipper and first drop Mel Knight (39no) and No.5 Alan Knight (11no) saw Horouta home.
The wicket-takers were Starck the seamer (2-19 from four) and first-change bowler McGuinness (1-21 from six, with two maidens).
Gloveman Daniel Baillie held two great catches to dismiss the Horouta opening pair of Stanley Blake (10) and Greg Taylor (14), both off the bowling of Starck.
Starck, off-sider to Campion pace-bowling spearhead Rhys Grogan, can with Grogan now count himself as an all-rounder under construction.
Mel Knight said: “Hamish (Swann)batted well for Campion, as did Connor (Starck) and Taye (McGuinness).
“For us, Grace Levy bowled really well with good variations. Connor and Taye were the pick of Campion’s bowlers.
“They were really hard to get away, and consistently hit good areas.”
MATT Jefferd played the knock of Round 5.
The High School Old Boys Presidents opener carried his bat for 45 off 65 balls in his team’s eight-wicket win against Rawhiti Legal Old Boys Rugby.
Last year’s champions OBR are toughing out a rugged start to this season, having won two of four games, with Round 3 abandoned.
Aside from bowling GBHS out for 11 runs in 8.1 overs in Round 2, they have done it hard.
OBR were bowled out for 77 in 18.3 overs by Ngatapa a fortnight ago, and on Saturday the Presidents bowlers took all 10 wickets for 96 in 27.4 overs.
Opener Warren van Zyl (33) and Tama Wirepa (16), eighth man in, topped OBR’s batting card. The father-and-son combination of second-change bowler, wily left-arm finger-spinner Tom Crosby (2-5 from three overs), and his son Blake Crosby (2-13 from three) did real damage for HSOB.
High School Old Boys in response reached 100 in 20.3 overs, Jefferd’s unbeaten 45 and his younger brother Tim Jefferd’s 16no from second drop seeing them home.
Six of the nine HSOB bowlers used took wickets.
In contrast, only OBR’s George Reynolds (2-12 from six overs) bared his teeth as a bowler for OBR.
OBR captain Lloyd van Zyl, one of the club’s great bowlers, went wicketless, conceding 22 runs from six overs.
His opposite, wicketkeeper-cum-offspinning all-rounder Ollie Needham, made 88 off 86 balls against Campion last weekend and is leading a happy team.
“It was another solid team performance from us, after losing the toss,” Needham said.
“We then had to negotiate the threatening pairing of George Reynolds and Llold Van Zyl, George claiming the wickets of John Phelps and Ollie Needham, before the brothers Jefferd (Tim and Matt) combined to see us home.”