Taylor Bettleheim's innings of 131 helped Havelock North to a five-wicket win over Central Hawke's Bay during the opening round of the Hawke's Bay Premier men's club cricket season. Photo / Hawke’s Bay Cricket Association
Taylor Bettleheim's innings of 131 helped Havelock North to a five-wicket win over Central Hawke's Bay during the opening round of the Hawke's Bay Premier men's club cricket season. Photo / Hawke’s Bay Cricket Association
– Article provided courtesy of the Hawke’s Bay Cricket Association
“You can probably see and hear from what I’m saying that I’m bloody stoked. Absolutely stoked.”
And why shouldn’t Bronson Meehan be?
The Napier Old Boys’ Marist player-coach knows his isn’t the most talented team in Hawke’s Bay Premier men’s club cricket. But Meehan’s encouraging them to at least try harder than everyone else.
Well, Marist did that and then some, on Saturday, beating Cornwall at Cornwall Park by 15 runs to kick their campaign off in some style.
Asked to bat on what Meehan described as “an absolute greentop”, 63 from import Karan Parmar and valuable contributions by Joban Singh (49) and Pritpal Singh (34) enabled Marist to post 252 in their 50 overs.
Bayley Wiggins (79), along with the likes of Liam Hall and Josh Fairbrother, seriously threatened to get the 253 required for victory, but Marist kept hanging in there and eventually bowled the hosts out for 237 in 44.4 overs.
Taradale's Jacob Cotter whips one off his legs, during his innings of 89 against Napier Technical Old Boys. Photo / Hawke’s Bay Cricket Association
“To get what we did [with the bat], we weren’t expecting to get that and I know Cornwall wasn’t expecting us to get 250 after being thrown in,” Meehan said.
“It’s just so good for the boys. We played a team half-full of Hawke’s Bay and CD [Central Districts] reps and we beat them. I mean how bloody good’s that?”
Marist are occasionally regarded as the ugly ducklings of the competition, which Meehan’s well aware of. But he doesn’t doubt the team’s spirit and desire to get better and felt Saturday’s result was just reward for a lot of hard work.
One team not short on talent, but sometimes prone to leave the hard work to one player, are Havelock North.
They relied a lot on captain Kian Schwartz last season. If he was good with bat and ball, then Havelock was good.
If not, then there was the potential for the team to struggle.
Well, visa issues mean Schwartz isn’t here yet, but you wouldn’t have known that from Havelock’s five-wicket win over Central Hawke’s Bay.
Needing 227 to win, Havelock got there with a whopping 9.5 overs to spare.
“Different people stood up at different times. Sunil [Kumar] with the new ball was perfect, Oscar [Mabin] with the older ball, bowling those middle overs was amazing and then Taylor [Bettleheim] was obviously the big key with the bat,’’ stand-in captain Sam Cassidy said.
Kumar took two wickets in his opening spell, before Mabin claimed four in the middle of the innings, including the two set Central Hawke’s Bay batters Hamish Lewis (53) and Dominic Thompson (74).
Bettleheim then made a very stylish 131, with good support from Sam Ferguson, Cassidy and Mabin.
The thing that pleased Cassidy the most was the intensity the team played with.
“If we can do that every week, then there’s no reason why we can’t go and win all three titles [this season],” said Cassidy.
Napier Technical Old Boys remain the team they’re all chasing and they had to work hard to beat Taradale at Nelson Park.
After making 233/9, Tech had to rally in the field to restrict Taradale to 229/8. At 120/2, Taradale were making reasonably light work of the chase, but that position of strength soon turned to 190/6.
In the end, it was hard not to feel the difference between the two sides was that one hasn’t quite developed the same belief as the other.
“That was what all the talk was about afterwards and obviously being a team that knows how to win,” Tech captain Todd Watson said.
“We relied on that and also having that ability to be determined and to do something special.”
Watson felt there were at least two occasions in the chase where the result could have gone Taradale’s way, not least because of the accomplished performance of teenage opening batter Jacob Cotter.
The Napier Boys’ High School player made 89 and created a strong impression upon his opponents.
“He’s pretty good and he seems pretty unruffled. He’s got a lot of talent and a lot of time and I think he’s a good rugby player too, so it’ll be interesting to see which way he goes,” said Watson.
“But I know he’s highly regarded at Taradale and he’s definitely one to watch.”
