Cricket: City's obstinate tail foils Maungakaramea

Maungakaramea retained the lead of the Oxford Trust Two Day Premier Cricket competition

Maungakaramea retained the lead of the Oxford Trust Two Day Premier Cricket competition but the second day of their penultimate round match against City didn't go as planned.

After dominating City on the opening day, Maungakaramea's skipper Neal Parlane was hoping it would only take a couple of hours to finish the match off and take maximum points.

He didn't reckon on Saturday morning's heavy rain, which delayed the start of play until 2.30pm. Nor did he expect the City tail to hang around for long.

City started the day at 49-6, leading by just 25 runs. City skipper Ian Page proved to be Maungakaramea's undoing, scoring a patient 79 before he was dismissed with most of the City tail playing good supporting knocks.

They were able to reach 147 before they were all out - with spinner's Josh Lee 3/59 and Joey O'Sullivan 2/22 doing the most damage - setting Maungakaramea a target of 124 to win in 22 overs.

It was a challenging total on a difficult wicket and Maungakaramea couldn't quite get going. Parlane scored 30 and Mark Southee 23 but regular wickets continued to fall until City must have almost fancied their chances of picking up the outright win.

Maungakaramea finally limped to 96/7 with Surinder Dhiman rewarded for good bowling with 3/19 and youngster James Jordan taking 2/24.

Not a ball was bowled in the other two matches, with Kaipara taking first innings points last week against Kamo while neither Onerahi-Central nor Whangarei Boys High School seized the advantage on the first day of their match.

Maungakaramea on 43.5 points lead Kaipara Flats by a slender three points at the top of the competition with a big gap back to Onerahi-Central in third place on 34.5.

City are fourth on 27 points, followed by WBHS on 17 and Kamo on 13.

The final round of the competition sees Onerahi-Central host Maungakaramea, Kaipara Flats host Whangarei Boys High School while Kamo play City at Kamo.