ON ATTACK: Ngatapa skipper Mike Gibson punches a ball through the off side in Senior B cricket at Harry Barker Reserve. At one stage in the season just ended, Ngatapa had a run of eight wins in a row.File picture by Paul Rickard
Never did David beat Goliath as often as he did this cricket season.
While wet weather forced the abandonment of the 30-over Senior B final — Rawhiti Legal OBR as third qualifiers taking the Hope Cup from last year's champions, the fourth-placed Bollywood Stars High School Old Boys Presidents — 2021-22 will be remembered above all for its upsets.
In Round 4 of a 15-week season that began on artificial pitches at Nelson Park, a young Campion College team led by Liam Spring bowled out Presidents in 23.5 overs to claim their first win of the season. At that stage, Presidents were without a win despite being defending champions.
Without a coin being tossed, High School Old Boys' game-day captain Jeff Chambers allowed the younger side to bat first on Harry Barker Reserve No.4.
Spring made 19 from No.1. Campion captain-in-waiting Hamish Swann, fourth man in, scored 33 and the younger team put up 131-9. Campion had a competitive score and it was game on.
Rhys Grogan, spearhead of their attack, then took a hat-trick and 5-24 in the competition's first shock result.
Three weeks later, Swann won the toss and led Campion to victory by four runs against Gisborne Boys' High School (2) on the practice wicket.
Campion were dismissed for 99 with three balls left to face, GBHS were all out in 23.5 overs.
Swann, from No.2, top-scored in the match with 29 in a Campion innings dominated by Boys' High off-spinner George Gillies (4-11).
Luke Hurlstone — one of two Year 13 students in the Campion side — took 4-32 in response and Grogan was again outstanding with 3-12. Taye McGuinness held three catches off Hurlstone, who bowled the Boys' High No.9 Akira Makiri (8) to end a low-scoring thriller.
To keep things spicy at the top of the table, OBR pushed the Civil Project Solutions Ngatapa Green Caps in Round 8.
Gary Coutts, James Raroa and Martin Bennett were the best umpires to stand in Senior B cricket during the season. Their punctuality, impartiality and good humour were appreciated by the players, and the long-serving Coutts handled this 1 v 2 assignment with aplomb.
Competition leaders Ngatapa beat OBR by one wicket with three balls in hand. As in the HSOB Presidents-Campion clash of four weeks before, game-day skippers Thom Berry (OBR) — the competition's leading run-scorer with 335 runs in seven matches, three times not out in seven innings, with a high score of 100 not out and an average of 84 — and Grant Walsh (Ngatapa) waived the toss on HBR 1.
OBR got to 158-9 in 29.3 overs, their No.6 Lloyd van Zyl top-scoring with 59.
Van Zyl, who made 24 not out in a three-wicket win to OBR over Campion three weeks before, showed the same grit that got his team home that day in pursuit of 62. OBR lost five wickets for four runs on that day. Against Ngatapa, whose firebrand Ryan West took four OBR wickets for 10 runs in a brilliant spell, Van Zyl kept the seamers at bay but fell to off-spinner Walsh (3-28).
The Ngatapa innings beggared belief. The competition's No.1 wicket-taker, left-arm opening bowler George Reynolds (23 scalps overall) took 6-21. Then the competition's best-performed wicketkeeper, Cam McNaught (Ngatapa, 16 catches), was in the middle with No.11 Ben Holden. Skipper Walsh, fourth man in, had made a game-high total of 60 but was caught off the first ball of the 30th over, bowled by Van Zyl.
Walsh and McNaught had crossed.
Two balls later, McNaught struck two for the win. Ngatapa's last six batsmen had contributed two runs — McNaught's two runs — yet the Green Caps had won the game.
They beat Campion the following week by nine wickets on the other side of the Reserve, having bowled out the College for 39.
Not every upset result was close, and Round 11 gave two humbling examples: competition leaders Ngatapa and OBR both tasted defeat.
Horouta Te Waka captain Mel Knight's batsmen rewarded her faith in batting first on HBR 4 against OBR by posting 197-9: fourth man in Chaitanya Sambare (86) was magnificent.
Gisborne Boys' High School's Ben Langford turned out for OBR and took 3-33 in six overs. A depleted OBR side, minus the grade's best opening pair of Berry and regular skipper Craig Christophers, were all out for 46 in 17.5 overs.
Lively leg-spinner Vinay Patel mixed things up and shone with 3-14, and Horouta won by 151 runs.
On HBR 1, HSOB Presidents ended Ngatapa's winning streak of eight games. The key to their 62-run win lay in making a competitive total — 183-9 — that would test opponents known to make hay.
HSOB first-drop Matt Jefferd made 56 before West's new-ball partner Zac Borrie (5-37) went through that solid No.3. In the Ngatapa innings, Nic Armour (4-30) tortured batsmen who had experience of good pace and spin, but not of the same patient stuff as Mike Edwards bowled three decades ago for Pirates. Edwards was often a very effective bowler and Armour was in the same class on February 19.
Boys' High (2) had not won a Senior B match in two years before they beat standing champions Presidents by 10 runs in the students' second-to-last game of the season.
Boys' High first-drop, left-handed wicketkeeper Kavindu Withanage, made his maiden half-century — 54 — after Lukas Fry, deputising for George Gillies, won the toss on HBR 4. Fry's crew made 154-7.
With four runs on the board, left-armer Fry swung the ball back through Billy Stackhouse's defence. It was a brute of a delivery to receive first up.
Fry was replaced by Year 9 pace bowler Caleb Taewa, who took a hat-trick and 4-11, and Taewa was relieved in turn by yet another leftie, the equally promising orthodox spinner Riker Rolls.
Two big moments made an upset possible: first-change quickie Nathaniel Fearnley (2-18 in 5.2 overs) pitching in line, hitting tall HSOB skipper Ollie Needham in line very low for leg before wicket early on, and Dylan Worsnop hanging on to the only chance given by second-drop Jeff Chambers (56).
In the spirit of games previously mentioned, the Presidents' four-wicket win against Ngatapa in the 1 v 4 semifinal was an upset. The Green Caps owed their total of 165-5 in large part to opener Walsh (52), skipper Mike Gibson (45 from No.5), second-drop leftie West (27) and No.3 Charles Morrison (22).
It had been good solid stuff from Ngatapa. To answer, Needham carried his bat for 53, first-drop Jarrod Renouf (31) hit six boundaries in his 23-ball stay and Mahmood Khan batted belligerently for 22 not out off nine balls with two sixes and one four. Presidents won the game with two overs to spare.
The third meeting betwen OBR and Presidents might have been a thriller. Throughout a wet week that wiped out both the Senior B and premier-grade finals, Christophers' aim — in a season of upsets — remained “to win — simple”.
Speaking for HSOB, Needham said: “The Hope Cup balances competition with having fun and developing cricketers. Congratulations to OBR and the teams, umpires and administrators who made it all possible. We look forward to the 2022-23 season.”
Horouta skipper Mel Knight said: “We had a great environment. Finishing second on the table — a big improvement on last season's results — was a highlight. And we believed that we could beat anyone on the day.”
Ngatapa skipper Mike Gibson agreed that it had been a good season, while Campion coach Mark Naden said: “For us, Liam, Hamish and Jonty Fenn's leadership was invaluable but to have a team of keen students — to not have to make up our playing numbers with adults — was just as big. I can't wait to see what these boys achieve in the next three years.”
George Gillies led both GBHS (2) and the Blues and Royals in the Challenge Cup, and played for the Galaxy World GBHS first 11 at Super 8-tournament level.
“Our batting needs to improve but we fielded hard and our bowling was pretty good,” Gillies said.
“We put in the work and trained twice a week, every week.”