ILT Premier League: Defending champs continue to lead the way
Appleby and Waikoikoi have banked wins in round five of Southland's ILT Premier League club cricket competition.
Defending champions Appleby continues to set the pace in Southland’s 2023/2024 ILT Premier League club cricket competition with a win over Marist in a game dominated by the ball.
Appleby won the toss on Saturday and chose to have a bat on their home grass pitch at Appleby and the Marist batsmen found the going tough.
Marist was in all sorts at 38 for six. It was only a couple of handy contributions from Shaun Fitzgibbon (39 from 65 balls) and Luke Reynolds (27 from 25 balls) that got them through to 109 before Marist lost its final wicket.
Sam Downing continued his good form with his three for 20 from seven overs, with Prashant Singh also taking three wickets and Keiran Lloyd picking up a couple of wickets, including the important one of Fitzgibbon.
It was very much advantage Appleby at the change of innings, although a bucket load of nerves was soon emptied into the Appleby camp.
Appleby was reduced to 29 for four as Marist found itself well on top with the ball, which was led by Sithum Niluminda Bandara.
It took Aaron Hart to claw Appleby out of its hole through his knock of 44, which in the context of the game was as good as a century on many other days.
But even when Hart departed at 80 for six Appleby still had a bit of work to do with the bat.
Then at 94 for eight it was very much game on with Dylan Hawkes chipping in with three wickets and Luke Reynolds two.
However, Singh backed up his heroics with the ball earlier in the day for Appleby to produce an all-important unbeaten 16 from 24 balls to get Appleby home with two wickets to spare.
Appleby now holds a four-point competition lead over Invercargill-Old Boys, who had the bye on Saturday, and Waikoikoi who fended off a young and improving SBHS first XI.
Ryan McFaul continued his encouraging start to the 2023/2024 cricket season guiding his Waikoikoi team home to a six-wicket over Southland Boys’ High School on Saturday.
SBHS won the toss and opted to have a bat and it proved to be a good call early on.
Captain Zach Harrington (46 from 85 balls) and Duncan Tait (24 from 45 balls) teamed up to put on 56 for the first wicket before Jared McKenzie removed Duncan Tait.
SBHS went from 56 without loss to 99 for six as the likes of Welby Reed with his three wickets rolled through SBHS’ top order.
However, some handy knocks from Charlie Hopcroft (31* from 27 balls), Ben Cocker (22 from 28 balls) and (Henry Hopcroft 11* from eight balls) pushed SBHS through to 167 for eight from their 40 overs.
Waikoikoi lost Reed with the score on 18 but never really was put under an extended amount of pressure in the chase with Ryan McFaul the key figure with his unbeaten 49* from 53 balls.
There were plenty of other useful contributions from Todd Thayer (37), Jared Mckenzie (26), and Kurt Thompson (24).
Waikoikoi overhauled the target with six wickets and 10.3 overs to spare.