St Peter’s improve against Morrinsville
Under hot sunny skies, hosts Morrinsville-Piako won the toss and put St Peter’s into bat, for Saturday’s Champions Trophy competition match, at the Morrinsville Recreation Ground.
The wicket was very green and damp and the Morrinsville bowlers were able to extract considerable bounce and seam movement, although the odd delivery also kept low.
The first victim of this was Ben Vincent who could only parry one that bounced a bit on him straight to point. He departed without scoring. Cam Cresswell fared no better, edging behind without troubling the scorers also.
Sean Bonenkamp was joined by Scott Law and the two of them had a profitable partnership of 78 for the 3rd wicket before Scott was bowled by one that seamed back in for 52 from 57 balls.
Ollie Louden became the 3rd duck in the innings when he was bowled and Tiger Houston made it to 15 before he too was bowled.
Then followed the second highest partnership of the innings between Josh Kalma and Sean Bonenkamp.
The pair put on 65 for the 6th wicket before Sean departed for a resolute 63 from 108 balls in the 44th over.
St Peter’s tried to up the tempo but the Morrinsville attack was difficult to get away and eventually St Peter’s was all out in the 49th over for 191.
Josh Kalma ended up 25 not out after facing 64 balls and supporting Sean superbly.
Bowling honours for Morrinsville went to J Singh who managed 4 wickets for 4 runs from only 2.3 overs.
Opening bowlers Tiger Houston and Baxter Kane opened the bowling steadily for St Peter’s and did their best to contain Morrinsville’s big hitting opening batsman L Johnson.
After picking up two early wickets Johnson began to get his eye in and opened up, taking Morrinsville from 16/2 to 98/3.
Several bowlers were tried by St Peter’s but no one was able to keep him quiet and it took a superb catch just inside the boundary by Josh Kalma to effect his dismissal.
Higgens and van den Heuvel then took the score through to 164 before Higgens was dismissed.
And then with the score on 177, only 15 from victory, Morrinsville lost 3 wickets without scoring and St Peter’s felt they may have had a chance of a win.
It was not to be as van den Heuvel took charge and reached the target for no further loss. He finished 57 not out. St Peter’s was left to rue the fact that they were probably 30 runs and a bowler short of causing Morrinsville real problems but the boys stuck to their task well in the field and never gave up trying.
Each game has seen improvement in either batting, bowling or fielding and if they can gain improvements in all areas they will eventually achieve their first victory at this level.