Club Cricket Finals Preview

Sunday will bring together the top two one-day teams in the Designer Homes Premiership, Championship, Division One and Division Two to contest the finals of the competition that commenced December and has been played under fantastic conditions since then.

Designer Homes Premiership

St Albans and Old Boys Collegians qualified as the top two and came through to win their semi-finals to confirm a finals meeting on Sunday at Hagley Oval. 

St Albans comfortably accounted for Lancaster Park, winning by seven wickets, while Old Boys Collegians ran down the 316 set by Sydenham with 15 balls to spare.  Both sides bring top form into the game and with the sides also in the middle a two-day match that will conclude on Saturday.  They will have seen plenty of each other in the last month!

Looking through the competition statistics, Jeff Case of Old Boys Collegians tops the run charts with David Wakefield and recent recruit from St Bedes, Matt Boyle, also showing top form.  Nic Clark has mixed strong showings for OBC with classy performances in the Hawke Cup for Nelson.  Top performers with the bat for St Albans have been Tyler Lortan, Greg Dawson and Jack Harper.

Lortan and Harper have put up top all round stats, both being in the top echelon of wicket takers as well, their performances complimented by Jack Hunter, Ben Langrope, James Tapper and Matt Holstein.

Harrison Cox has been the mainstay of the OBC attack, with Luke Germon, Sean Davey when not playing for Canterbury and Will Graham also high on the wicket taking charts.

The game commences at 10.30am.

Thanks to Ash Head and the Hagley team for making the ground available for the male showpiece of Christchurch Club Cricket.

Championship

St Albans will host Sumner in the Championship final on the Nursery Ground at Hagley Park after they accounted for Lancaster Park and Sydenham in their respective semi-finals.  The game will also commence at 10.30am.

St Albans will be looking to repeat their win from the round robin, while Sumner aim to claim what would be their first trophy at this level.

Matthias Paltridge has led the way for St Albans with the bat of late and has also performed with merit when called up for the occasional game in the Designer Homes Premiership.  The experienced Matt Fielding has shown he is still a force with the bat for Sumner.

Both sides have strong bowling attacks with Aditya Puri, Henry Winchester, Dan Vann and Simar Kang leading the way for Sumner.  For Saints, Ian Souness, Jack Anderson, Sam Kearns and Clem Gibbens are the critical cogs.

Division One

East Shirley topped the round robin and qualified to host the final in this six-team grade with Merivale Papanui pipping Halswell in an exciting semi-final.  The game will be played at Burwood Park commencing at 10.30am.

East Shirley’s strong showing has been off the back of solid batting by Landon Neal, Tom Dixon, Rueben Spicer and Bradley Entwistle while James Deeley, Matt Ling and Rory Hawes have put up consistent performances for Merivale Papanui.

Sam Gillespie, Chris McBride and Jacob Wilson have been in the wickets for Merivale Papanui while Entwistle, Jared van Eyk Menkman and Ben Michel have been the leaders in the East Shirley attack.

Division Two

The Halswell Canta Lions will host Hornby at Halswell Domain with this game commencing at 12pm.

The game in pool play between these two was a close contest and this promises to be the same with the experience of Hornby aiming to outplay the Canta Lions flare.

From Hornby, Tom Ravenscroft, Craig Waters, Will Tod and Jonty Hunter are all in the top 10 run scorers while for Halswell, Randika Dissanayake, Nuwan Rathnathunga and Amila Kankanamge have been the star batsmen.

The same three Halswell players are their top bowlers, so will be in for a busy day, while Jonty Hunter, Matt Johannsen and James Gillies have been the most consistent with the ball for Hornby.

Article added: Thursday 25 February 2021