Cricket: Bay gearing up for Hawke Cup tilt

Brent Hampton holds the record for Bay of Plenty's highest score of 194.

Bay of Plenty are primed for their Hawke Cup challenge beginning on Friday against Hawke's Bay in the last challenge of the season.

The 2016 Hawke Cup competition has been a rollercoaster ride, with Buller taking the NZ Cricket Minor Association prize from Canterbury Country, before losing it to North Otago. Last weekend Hawke's Bay defeated North Otago in Oamaru to set up Bay of Plenty's chance of winning the trophy presented by Lord Hawke in 1910.

Bay of Plenty's first rep match was a Hawke Cup challenge against South Auckland in Hamilton in 1932. Since then, Bay has played in another 26 Hawke Cup challenges, winning or defending the trophy on 11 occasions.

Bay of Plenty experienced plenty of highs and lows in the first three months of 1987 in their first turn of defending the cup, wrested from Hawke's Bay in 1986. After a successful defence against Horowhenua, they lost to Hawke's Bay but by a quirk of the challenge format, Bay of Plenty returned to Hawke's Bay two weeks later to win it back before losing to Southland in the last challenge of the season.

A decade on, Bay of Plenty again held the cup after beating Auckland/Manukau in March 1997. Two weeks later one of the best Bay of Plenty batting performances took place at Blake Park, Mount Maunganui against Central Otago. The match was Graeme Aldridge's debut and produced several highlights. Bay of Plenty simply batted the visitors out of the match on day one. After being 50-3, Simon Winter strode to the wicket to blaze 181 runs, the then highest total for Bay of Plenty.

The third era of winning and defending the big prize started in a record-breaking, epic encounter against Hamilton in 2013. The Bay of Plenty bowlers worked hard to remove the defending champions for 255 with Tony Goodin taking four wickets and Brett Hampton returning 3/53.

Bay of Plenty batted for the next two days, with Hamilton waving the white flag of surrender when the Bay were dismissed for 701 mid-afternoon on the final day. Brett Hampton (194) and Joe Carter (187) top-scored, with Bharat Popli unfortunately out for 99 and Mitch McCann producing a fighting knock of 69.

Bay of Plenty then went on to defend the Hawke Cup against Manawatu, Canterbury Country and South Canterbury in the remaining 2013 challenges. A further successful defence against Hamilton in January 2014, was followed by defeat to Manawatu two weeks later.

Derek Beard has the most Hawke Cup appearances with 13 and most runs (549), with Hampton's 194 in 2013 the highest score. The all-time wicket tally belongs to Tony Goodin with 34.