Boys’ High will welcome into the fold Year 10 student Caleb Taewa for the first time this season. Another promising left-arm pace bowler, Johnathan Gray, and elder brother David Gray are both on GBHS rugby sevens duty in Rotorua.
The David McDonald-coached GBHS lost to OBR by 10 wickets in 29.3 overs last weekend, with co-captain Bekko Page’s fighting 21 their only knock of consequence.
Theirs is a young team but the likes of big left-hander Jarrod Ormiston at the top of the order, fellow opener Nathaniel Fearnley and Alex Shanks, who as fifth man in on opening day got a cracker from Nathan Trowell before he could get going, are all much better players than their scores of 10, 0 and 0 would indicate.
The sooner those three established players find form, the better from the perspective of a Boys’ High unit still after their first wicket, and whose aim it is to bowl full outside off-stump.
Page said: “We have the pace alone to cook them, but with good channels and length we should be able to get it done for fewer than 149 runs.”
Horouta’s David Situ wants a more disciplined approach from his batsmen after their heavy defeat to HSOB in Round 1.
OBR versus HSOB should be interesting. In Round 1, OBR lefties Te-Reimana Gray and Sean Henry batted their young opposition out of the game, but last week HSOB left-arm speedster Keegan Jooste took 4-12 in 4.4 overs, and spearhead Steve Lamb was also superb in taking 1-16 from six overs.
A right-arm/left-arm pair with the new ball against a left-hand/right-hand pair opening the batting is uncommon. Tomorrow OBR’s Gray, HSOB regular captain Dave Castle and his teammate Nick Armour are all out. In will come Kieran Venema for Gray, all-rounder Baxter Mackay for Castle and Poverty Bay representative left-arm opening bowler Jak Rowe for Armour.
If lefties Henry, Jooste and Rowe are all involved at the same time in this top-of-the-table clash, it will be a genuine test of wits and alignment for the wicketkeeper, fielding captain and bowler’s-end umpire.
HSOB lost nine wickets on their way to posting 212 last time out, but aside from Gray and Henry, Nick Greeks’s OBR batsmen have yet to get the willow in their hands. They have another leftie, Josh Adams (who performed brilliantly as wicketkeeper in Round 1), Greeks, Dane Thompson and Cohen Loffler in the bank and all four can make real runs.
HSOB, this week without the in-form Castle, will also have to deal with a strong OBR pace attack. After Castle’s 91, fifth-man-in William Budd’s 18 was their top score last week and that will need to change under game-day captain and yet another left-hander, the towering Carl Shaw.
In the Senior B Grade 30-over Hope Cup games on artificial pitches at Nelson Park, the Campion College first 11 will go up against Hope Cup holders Civil Project Solutions Ngatapa Green Caps on NP1, Rawhiti Legal OBR and Breakers Horouta Te Waka will meet on NP3 and the Gisborne Boys’ High School second 11 host Chicking HSOB Presidents on NP4. All three fixtures start at 2pm.
The Challenge Cup junior secondary school game between Campion College and Gisborne Boys’ High Life Guards on Wednesday was cancelled because of ground conditions.
