Joey Yovich charges in to bowl for Duracrete Products City in the Northland T20 Premier final. Photo/John Stone
Joey Yovich charges in to bowl for Duracrete Products City in the Northland T20 Premier final. Photo/John Stone
It was a day for the bowlers at Northland's T20 Premier Grade final, with Onerahi-Central quick Tom Herman playing a starring role as his side pulled off an unlikely victory.
After Duracrete Products City's bowlers also proved their worth by skittling Onerahi for just 87 runs in their innings -City's experienced batting line-up were confident of overhauling their total at Cobham Oval yesterday.
Instead, fantastic bowling by Onerahi saw the City side fall 12 runs short of victory, reduced to just 76/9 in their 20 overs.
Sean Doel (2-11) removed the openers while Fletcher Coutts (1-14) and Henry Cooper (1-11) restricted the scoring in the middle of the innings before Herman ripped the heart out of City's batting order with 4-20.
James Thompson held up an end and top-scored for City with 35 runs but none of the other batsman reached double figures and his efforts were wasted.
Earlier, City bowled Onerahi out for 87 with a ball to spare but it was their ability to restrict the scoring that had their hopes up.
Onerahi were restricted to five boundaries with Charlie Roebuck (16) and Rory Anders (22) scoring two apiece in the middle of the innings to briefly give some hope they might put up a big total.
Instead the last six wickets fell for just 11 runs as the City bowlers put what they thought was a stranglehold on the game.
Yovich (3-17) and Craig Little (3-21) finished with the best figures but Matt Lobb (2-21) and Max Trimble (2-14) were among the wickets.
Stacey Hyndman and Ryan Brown were also extremely hard to score off.
Onerahi's belief in their ability to win and some fine bowling were key.
Earlier in the day, Bream Bay took a little gloss off Onerahi-Central's day by taking the honours in a tight NCA Reserve Grade T20 final, which acted as a curtain-raiser to the premier match.
Bream Bay's Brendan Maihi led with the ball in the NCA Reserve Grade T20 final. Photo/John Stone
Onerahi won the toss and sent Bream Bay in to bat.
Money Singh top scored with 40 with the rest of their side contributing runs to end their 20 overs at 136/7.
Left-arm off spinner Andrew Johnsen (2-26) and Connor Johnson (1-13) were responsible for crucial breakthroughs to slow up the scoring but Onerahi weren't as sharp as they could have been in the field and Bream Bay were able to capitalise on their mistakes.
Onerahi batsman BJ Howie (23), Adam Sylva (23) and Dev Birchell (19) made starts but the Bream Bay attack proved too good, led by a tight spell from Brendon Maihi (2-16).
The difference between two fairly even teams proved to be in the field with Bream Bay causing no less than three run outs to eventually dismiss Onerahi eight runs short of victory to claim the title.
