Morrinsville into Trophy final
On Saturday, Diprose Miller Morrinsville-Piako took on the RA Sangha Xl at the Morrinsville Recreation Ground in day two of their two-day match in the Waikato Valley Champions Trophy round.
RA Sangha resumed the day at 56-1 and Jayden Van Den Heuval (3-48 off 15 overs) picked up a few early breakthroughs.
However, Garbij Binny and Penut Butajar built a solid partnership in the middle order playing some unorthodox strokes and increasing the scoring rate.
MPC continued to chip away with Brayden Silvester (1-36 off 7 overs) and Darryn Howse (1-54 off 12 overs) picking up a wicket apiece and Brendan Revell running out Areal Singh.
RA Sangha continued to score quickly and Jatinder Singh (3-12 off 3 overs) picked up some late wickets with RA Sangha captain Devinder Sangha declaring their innings at 266/9 setting MPC a challenging 220 to win in the final innings.
Darryn Howse (12) and Adam Michels (21) got MPC off to a good start and they were backed up by Jayden Van Den Heuval (27).
However, RA Sangha spinners Harbhajan Singh and Ravi Ashwin ripped through the MPC lineup with Merv Burge being the last man out and MPC all out for 79.
A disappointing loss but in an interesting twist, the third placed Cambridge Camels were upset by St Paul’s Collegiate meaning that MPC have made the two day Champions Trophy final this Saturday against Hinuera at Pohlen Park in Matamata. have only had six players.
Sam was captain and lost the toss and Maeroa put us into bat which is what we wanted anyway.
Opening the batting was Kieran and Karl and they had a very good start with both of them getting double figures.
Kieran made an excellent 16 and Karl retired for the 2nd week in a row on 36.
Other notable scores were Jarrod, 9, Hunter a good 17 and Sam 13 not out.
After a feed and a drink the team came out feeling good and they backed that up with good bowling and even better fielding.
Sam opened the bowling ending up with 1 for 10 runs off his 4 overs.
Brodie at the other end got 0 for 17 off 4, Hunter 1 for 21, Abby 1 for 27, Kieran 1 for 1 of 1.5 overs to finish it off.
The Fez Kebab Player of the Day with excellent figures and awesome fielding was Alex Griffin with 2 for 16 off 4.
This helped the team get their first win for the season.
It was very pleasing to see the team helping their mates out there and loving the game of cricket. A very proud coach. Big thanks to Jan, Macca, Rodney for their help and Jarrod for stepping in for the team.