Senior B partnerships will be key to match results

A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.

Good partnerships are invaluable.

And Ngatapa’s seven-wicket win against Horouta in the country club’s last clash with the Mel Knight-led Waka rested on a third-wicket stand of 66 between Jack Jefferd and Harry Cave, neither of whom are playing tomorrow.

But veteran Grant Walsh is coming off a solid 55 for Ngatapa against Gisborne Boys’ High School (2), and may well open with left-hander Richard Briant (37 against GBHS) again. Should they produce 110 as a pair twice in a fortnight, Senior B club cricket’s No.2 team (18 points) will be hard to beat.

Rawhiti Legal Old Boys Rugby (27pts) sit atop the tree after nine rounds, with seven games to play. They are followed by the Civil Project Solutions Ngatapa Green Caps, the Bollywood High School Old Boys Presidents (15), Siteworx Horouta (12), Campion College (9pts) and GBHS (0).

Ngatapa and Horouta will go at it in 30-over competition from 2pm tomorrow on a quality grass pitch, Harry Barker Reserve No.3, while OBR will look to repeat their seven-wicket win against Campion on an artificial deck at Nelson Park.

Boys’ High (2) and HSOB Presidents will play on the smallest ground, the practice wicket. The previous meeting had Presidents put up 300-3 and GBHS, 244-5 — for Boys’ High, that was a far cry from their 72 all out against Ngatapa last Saturday.

Bekko Page, who bowled well but without luck against the Green Caps, can look forward to two spells tomorrow. Off-spinner George Gillies’s return will give Boys’ High another potential wicket-taker and the emergence of all-rounder Adam Situ as another keeping option will ease the burden on Year 9 student Alex Shanks behind the stumps.

Presidents’ regular gloveman and captain Ollie Needham, club mainstay Glen Udall and Jeff Chambers are all unavailable. Kyle Jean-Louis and Yeagan Lanka will be in charge of HSOB in Round 10.

Mel Knight’s Horouta crew will be without James Tapp and Kavinda Yasith for what could be a ding-dong battle with Ngatapa (both are on duty for the club’s premier side this weekend), but hard-hitting Northern Districts under-19 representative Rubi Perano — who is Royal New Zealand Navy-bound — will play her first game since her good showing with the bat at the NZU19 tournament three weeks ago.

Knight said that Horouta’s batting needed to improve, and that her batsmen needed to be patient and build an innings, sentiments GBHS captain Dylan Foster might share.

His is a young side, but one with experience of Hope Cup cricket and fair ability. Confidence with field setting and good husbandry of bowling resources is not learned overnight, but he keeps it all in perspective: “We always go in positive and to enjoy our cricket, because we’re the future — we have to start somewhere!”

Craig Christophers is similarly chirpy, happy at the prospect of his OBR side’s impending clash with The Waka: “Matt Henwood is hitting the ball harder than anyone else at training this year, while our left-armer seamer Tama Wirepa got the ball to move at open-wicket training last night. They’ll be our key players.”

Campion player-coach Mark Naden and fellow teacher Matt King are the adults in the side tomorrow. Although Campion will miss their bowling spearhead Blake Marshall, Luke Hurlstone made a fine 41 from No.7 last Saturday. He, tall swing bowler Cameron Rowell and captain Liam Spring will need to play well if Campion are to unseat an OBR side who bat deep and whose bowling resources include Lloyd van Zyl, Amit Vyas, Wirepa and medium-pacers George Reynolds and Jannie Jacobs.