In round four of the Southland Club Cricket 40-over competition last Saturday, Te Anau bounced back from a heavy defeat to beat the Royal Riders by five wickets at the lakeside ground.
Angus Burnett took four wickets to help bowl out the Royal Riders for 159 in the 39th over. Bharat Bhushan (44) top scored for the visitors.
Both Te Anau opening batsmen went cheaply before Geoff McFarlane (41) and Nepia Tauri (38) steadied the ship. Grant Taylor (19) and Liam Walton (27*) then saw the team through to victory with six overs to spare.
Southland Boys’ High School beat Central Western by 83 runs at the College in Winton. Brendan Domigan (110) was the main contributor to the visitor’s total of 267-9.
Another vastly experienced batsman, Shaun Fitzgibbon, added 33 runs for his new club and youngster Henry Hopcroft hit 36 runs from 30 balls.
Gary Singh and Gareth Paul both took three wickets each for Central. With the bat, Stephen McLachlan (30), Gareth Paul (28*) and Kohn Taylor (28) kept the game going while five other local batsmen totalled one run between them.
Blue Mountain was beaten by nine wickets by Old Boys on ground two at Appleby. The country boys were skittled for just 65 runs; Chris Case did most of the damage by taking four wickets for 18 runs.
Sahil Rana then scored 54 runs off 34 balls to help Old Boys reach the target in 12 overs.
Waikoikoi beat the Metro Cubs by 33 runs in a low scoring match at Waikoikoi. The locals batted first and were bowled out for 98 runs.
The Cubs had reason to be confident an upset win was within their grasp but they could only scratch together 68.
The Appleby and Marist game was abandoned.
This Saturday, Te Anau will be playing their third game in a row at home when they host Marist.
Central will play Waikoikoi in Winton, and Old Boys and the Metro Cubs are on Queens Park’s main oval.
SBHS will play the Royal Riders at the school and Blue Mountain will host Appleby at the college.
- By John Langford
