Cricket: Experience helps Maungakaramea nab win

City's Ian Page takes one to the ribs during his side's round one loss to Maungakaramea. Photo / Tania Whyte

Maungakaramea, Kaipara Flats and Kamo have hit the ground running during the opening round of the 2015/16 Lion Red Cup.

Taking to the crease at Cobham Oval on Saturday, Maungakaramea's experienced hands help put on a hearty effort to chase down City's first innings total of 171/10.

Stabilising City's effort in the first innings, Craig Little and Ian Page found some composure to attain knocks of 58 and 23 respectively.

However, Maungakaramea's bowlers had different ideas going into the back end of the first spell with Stephen Cunis dismissing several middle and tail order batsmen for ducks on the way to his handy 5/9 off 10 overs.

"Yeah it wasn't a bad day for the old boy," Maungakaramea's Neal Parlane said of Cunis.

Also producing some valuable overs for Maungakaramea, Cody Andrews took the wicket of City's No 5, Little to disrupt the home side's flow and end the innings with a comfortable figure of 2/42 off his 10 overs.

Padding up for the second innings, the form of Maungakaramea's bowlers didn't transfer to their batters as much as they would have liked.

Despite this, No 4 Parlane had a cracker day on the Cobham Oval pitch.

Scoring 88 not-out, Parlane carried Maungakaramea through the majority of the innings. With many of his teammates struggling to make double figures, it wasn't until Parlane linked up with Cunis late in the piece to produce the runs needed to surpass City's 171 first innings spread.

The final strokes of experience from Parlane and Cunis helped Maungakaramea end the day on 174/8 off 46.5 overs to win by two wickets.

In the remaining fixtures of the first round, Onerahi had little to combat Kaipara's first innings knock of 183/10 off 49 overs, losing by 140 runs.

Kyran Dill enjoyed a knock of 58 to bolster Kaipara's innings, while Onerahi's Henry Cooper took three wickets for 29 runs.

Making light work of Onerahi in the second spell, Kaipara's bowlers had a field day with the ball in hand.

Managing 5/4, Shaun Beamish led the Kaipara bowling brigade, while Kevin Forde managed 1/8, Kyran Dill 1/10, and Matthew Taylor 3/19.

The remaining match of the round was a closer affair than the other two, with Kamo beating Whangarei Boys' High School by 24 runs after setting a first innings total of 235/10.