• Hereworth School cricketers in celebration mode

Hereworth School cricketers in celebration mode

For the second year in a row the Hereworth 1st XI won the honour of representing Central Districts at the National Intermediate 20/20 ANZ Primary Cup to be held in Palmerston North. This is a three day competition that involves the best Intermediate teams from all six major associations of NZ Cricket.

This year's Hereworth team went into the competition with a clear goal of at least achieving the same as last year and to go one better and win the tournament outright. This was certainly not going to be an easy feat as with a 20/20 game it just takes one or two players to play extremely well and the game can be taken away from you very quickly.

The tournament started with two games against Queenstown in the morning and Waihi (Canterbury). The batting set the tone in both games and enabled the boys to come away with a comfortable win in the morning and a slightly closer win in the afternoon. After the first day the boys were certainly keen to continue the winning trend.

The ‘banana skin’ game was the morning game against Raroa Intermediate (Wellington). Bowling first we bowled and fielded well and limited them to 78. We started off with a fantastic opening partnership of 50 and then lost 4 quick wickets. This then started a period of jitters and a few nails being bitten as we were down to our last pair at the crease and needing 6 runs to win.

Jack Wilson calmly finished the game off with a boundary. Following this exciting game we went into the afternoon game against Marian Intermediate (Northern Districts) with a determination to not fold in the batting like we did in the morning.

Once again we bowled first and limited them to 106 off their 20 overs. The opening pair of Angus Scott and Nicholas Robertson were up against the quickest opening bowler in the country.

This was certainly a real test for both batters and they passed with flying colours in posting an opening partnership of 52. James Rynniker-Doull came in and smashed a quick fire 21 which enabled the boys to finish day two with four wins out of four.

The last day was ultimately the final. The two unbeaten teams, Hereworth and St Kentigerns (Auckland) were playing each other to determine the overall tournament winner.

With the weather not playing ball the game was moved to an artificial pitch. The toss of the coin was going to be crucial as to the possible outcome as with rain around we knew there would be a shortened game. We lost the toss and batted first.

After 7 overs the rain came and after a long delay we had 3 overs to bat to set St Kentigern a target as the game was reduced to 10 overs per team. Unfortunately the total we set wasn’t good enough as the two St Kentigern openers were just too good and knocked off the total.

A wonderful tournament was held by New Zealand Cricket and the boys have taken life long memories from it. The comments from all who were involved with the tournament, the scorers, groundsman and other teams all spoke highly of how the Hereworth Team conducted themselves both on and off the field. This is certainly something we pride ourselves on.

At the conclusion of the tournament the team were awarded the ‘Spirit of Cricket’ award for the manner in which they played the game, interacted with the opposition and conducted themselves around scores and tournament officials. A tremendous reward for the whole team and for Hereworth School.

The squad was ably led by James Ryniker-Doull, the wicket keeper and top order batter. He had a tremendous tournament scoring 173 runs in five innings, with a top score of 79 not out. He was well supported in the batting by Angus Scott (139 runs) and some cameos from Nicholas Robertson and Charlie Wenley.

With the batting unit playing well this enabled the bowlers to have something to bowl at. This unit was led by our right arm leg spinner, Jack Wislon who took 5 wickets for 47 runs in four games and right arm medium Archie Absolom who bowled extremely well together.