Marlborough suffered a 1st innings loss at the hands of Buller in their opening Zone 3 Hawke Cup fixture last weekend. Having chosen to bat first Buller made a competitive 217, Alistair Burnett top scoring with 53 well supported by former Marlborough rep Greg Knowles with 44. Knowles then took 4 wickets as Marlborough fell 15 runs short, Matthew Stretch top scoring with 45. Buller batted solidly in their 2nd innings to end any Marlborough hopes of chasing an outright, finishing on 210 for 5, Michael Grafton making an unbeaten 82. Marlborough travel to take on Hawke Cup holders Canterbury Country this weekend who started their campaign with a 1st innings win over Nelson.
Notable performers in WK Junior 4th & 5th grade games last Saturday include; Kyle Buckley (28), Joseph Gilhooly (30), Connor Davies (35), Fionn Heagney (4-3), Thomas Heagney (36 & 3-2), Louis Hickman (33), Josh Harris (49), Julian Englefield (3-12) & Max Nailer (31). Both grades now have an additional round over weekend of 16-17 Dec to make up for early season wash outs.
In 3rd grade games the highlight was a century for Ollie Kennedy, while Kayse Holdaway fell just short on 94 as Celtic racked up 301 against Wairau Valley who replied with 208 thanks to 83 from Aaron Robinson and 41 from Spencer Gregg. Wairau were the other winners over Renwick with notable contributions coming from Ollie Eyles (62), Hayden McWilliam (45) and Niko Russell (3-34). For Renwick Nathan Brooke-Taylor top scored with 40 and Dane Winstanley took 3-19.
In the 2nd Grade 40 over competition a century to Gurpreet Singh carried Celtic Gold to a convincing 90 run win over Renwick (Kirk Nicholas & Eden Pettigrew each picking up 3 wickets). Fergus Dodson then took 4-13 for Celtic. Kaikoura fell an agonising 3 runs short chasing 175, Sam Young the Wairau match winner with 4-30, while Gavy Kalwan top scored with 57. Wairau’s innings was built around Carter Aitken (50) and Flynn Hawtin (49), while Thomas Bolton took 4-33. Celtic Green were easy winners over Wairau Valley who were bowled out for 76, Luca Turnbull taking 3-9 following which Green knocked the runs off in only 8 overs, Joel Logan making 40. Celtic Green, Renwick and Celtic Gold head the table on 10 points with one round still to play. Sadly all 2nd grade T20 games scheduled for Thursday nights fell victim to the wet weather.
In first round game of the SBS Bank Senior Grade T20 competition there were wins for MBC 1st XI and Wairau. MBC scored a commanding 193 for 3 thanks to Tim Petrie (76), Griffin Carter (40) and Aidan Conroy (34). Celtic were bowled out for 118 in reply with Sam Young taking 3-22. Wairau were the other winners over Wairau Valley with no scorecard available at time of writing.