Cadets' Jono Boult gets bowled during a game last season. Photo / File
Cadets' Jono Boult gets bowled during a game last season. Photo / File
With pre-season matches out of the way, the Baywide Cricket season finally springs into life on Saturday, October 24 with the start of the Bay of Plenty Cup.
The major casualties this season are several of last year's overseas players, unable to return due to Covid-19 restrictions.
All eyes will be on Bond & Co Mount Maunganui who won the prestigious Hart Family Trophy (Baywide champion of champions), after they nearly swept the board in three Baywide competitions.
Mount Maunganui had success in the Bay of Plenty Cup and Baywide T20, but saw the Baywide trifecta thwarted when they finished second on run-rate countback, when the Williams Cup playoffs were abandoned because of Covid-19.
A Mount Maunganui change of captaincy from longtime skipper Dale Swan to Matt Golding won't dilute the experience at the top, with Golding having been a Mount Maunganui premier player for 13 seasons.
The Mount Maunganui coming and goings will see David Hancock and Niven Dovey arrive and Dan Smith and Ben Guild move to new Baywide recruits Pāpāmoa.
Snapping at Mount Maunganui's heels throughout last season were Eves Realty Greerton, who chased the Blake Park based side home in the Bay of Plenty Cup and Baywide T20 competitions. The Pemberton Park based side won the Williams Cup on countback after Greerton, Mount Maunganui and Cadets were tied on equal points at the end of the regular season.
Three new Greerton recruits; Tim Burke (Auckland), Brandan Laurenzi (Auckland) and Mitchell Rush (Wellington), are expected to bring plenty of firepower to the team and counter the loss of Josh Bates, Tom Renouf, Henry Collier, Bruce Kerr and Pip Thickpenny.
Mount Maunganui's Dale Swan rolls his arm over. Photo / File
Multiple Baywide champions Element IMF Cadets have rung the changes adding several extremely promising youngsters to counter the loss of Cadets legends Jono Boult and Jacob Logan. Andrew Mascall will step into the captain's role vacated by Boult, while second generation Cadets premier players Carson and Spencer Wills have joined the side.
Other new Cadets faces are Jamie McCabe from Ireland, along with Luke McConaghty from Palmerston North and Dandre du Plessis, returning to the Tauranga Domain.
Arguably the most improved side in Baywide cricket last season was Generation Homes Lake Taupo, who were the Bay of Plenty Plate runner-up and made the playoffs in the Baywide T20, finishing third equal.
One Lake Taupō casualty has been last season's star all-rounder Drew Brierley, unable to return from the Northern Hemisphere because of Covid-19. Habib Malik will continue to captain the team.
Another to impress last season was Holland Beckett Law Tauranga Boys' College. They won the Bay of Plenty Plate and qualified for the Williams Cup playoffs.
Tauranga Boys' always face a mid-season challenge with term four school leavers moving on. Tim Clarke returns as player/coach and will have support from fellow TBC staff member Charles Williams and the occasional appearance from Jason Spice.
Greerton's Lee Watkins keeps his eye on the ball. Photo / File
The Te Puke Cricket Club dates back to the early days of the sport in the Bay of Plenty, having been first established in 1887, with the first recorded match between Te Puke and Tauranga teams played in 1884.
Stability will be the key to success for the Flying Mullet Te Puke premier side this season, with Stephen Crossan again cemented as the captain and an unchanged line-up in the Te Puke First XI. The side always target the time-honoured Williams Cup as their primary focus each year, with the Te Puke Domain-based unit holding the record of 16 titles, since their first victory in the 1938/39 season.
The combined Bayleys Central Indians team have added a valuable new recruit in the return of Bharat Popli to the team as player/coach.
Popli has played 46 first class matches since his Northern Districts debut in December 2013, scoring 2779 runs with three centuries and a highest score of 172. While numerous accolades have flown thick and fast in his time in the middle, the 2015/16 season was his career highlight, being named the NZ Cricket Domestic Player of the Year.
Steve Nicholls will again lead the Rotorua-basd side, with Dan Ford and Ryan Hill joining Popli as new acquisitions, while Parv Mehta is the only player loss.
The Geyser Cricket Club made a solid start to their first season in the Baywide cricket competitions last season. Covid-19 claimed another overseas player with Sam Kershaw having to return to England.
The progress that Geyser made during the summer is shown by individual player performances in the season-ending Williams Cup. Kershaw was the number one batsman with 414 runs, which included two centuries.
Pāpāmoa are the new boys on the block in making their Baywide competition debut. A Pāpāmoa Cricket Club spokesman said history would suggest that most new teams take a couple of years to find their feet in Bay of Plenty premier cricket.
The Pāpāmoa expectations are centred on continually improving each week and being competitive against all other contenders.
Former Black Cap Matt Horne, who played 35 tests and 50 ODIs, will coach and play in the new Baywide side, with former Bay of Plenty representative players Mitchell Sweetman and Mark Divehall also bringing experience in spades to the new team.
