Hello everyone. Welcome to this week’s Top Six, and to the last pre-Christmas cricket weekend. It’s nearly half-way through the season already.
1. Junior Cricket returns in February
Unfortunately a soggy Saturday morning put an end to most Junior Cricket last weekend. Junior Cricket resumes in February and the dates are here on our website.
In the meantime, enjoy your beach and backyard games!
Junior Cricket – back in February
2. Congratulations to Matt Hay and Blake Coburn
Congratulations to Matt Hay (ex Burnside junior player and current Burnside Friday night Junior Coach) and Premier player Blake Coburn, who made the Canterbury Under 17 and Under 20 teams respectively, for their upcoming National Provincial tournament. Well done and good luck lads.
Blake Coburn
2. Wins to 6 of the 8 Senior teams
The rain disappeared in time for the Senior grades to get matches in, even if some were delayed.
Most of our teams came away with good wins, despite an under-strength Premiers losing to St Albans by 98 runs.
The 2As continued their excellent season with a 8 wicket win over Sydenham. Phil McCormack, who is also having a great season, and Angus Quinn starred with ball and bat respectively. The 2Bs went home early after a big 8 wicket win over Lancaster Park Woolston. Skipper Dan Vedder, who took 4/6, said it was “easily the best team performance I’ve been involved in”.
The Presidents Foxes dominated Old Boys Collegians by 187 runs, led by skipper David Robertson who scored 69.
Our three 3B teams completed a clean sweep. The Brawlers thumped East Shirley by 8 wickets, with Al Brown contender Rahul Joshi taking his second consecutive five wicket bag. The Cannons had an emphatic 9 wicket victory against Heathcote. The Mariners had a 4 wicket win, also over East Shirley, on the back of a Karl Grant half century and a Tony Edlin five-for.
The surprise of the day was the T20 table-topping Dubai Diamond Traders losing by 8 wickets to last placed Hornby.
4. Six players onto Honours Board
Two 2A players, one Presidents Fox, one Brawler and two Mariners made the Honours Board this week. Check out the details here.
5. Matt Farrant new leader of Al Brown competition
The Premiers Matt Farrant has leapgrogged the Cannons’ Rob Gillespie to sit atop the Al Brow n leaderboard.
The Foxes’ Hamish Kember moves up to third after bowling figures against OBC of 6/3/3/2.
Another mover is Reuben Smith from the Cannons, who now sits in 7th place.
You can see the top ten, and the whole detailed leaderboard, here on our website.
6. Did you know…….
Another splendid innings from Kane Williamson this morning. Did you know the following four facts about him, from today and this year (courtesy of the excellent Cricinfo website)?
- 1751 – Runs for Kane Williamson in 2014, the most by any New Zealand batsman across formats in a calendar year. The previous record was held by Stephen Fleming who had made 1658 runs in 2004.
- 123- Runs made by Williamson in Abu Dhabi. He is the second New Zealand captain, after Fleming, to score an ODI hundred against Pakistan. Fleming had struck an unbeaten 115 in Christchurch in 2004.
- 24 – Williamson’s age, making him the youngest New Zealand captain to score a ton in 50-over cricket. Only four players have made an ODI century at a younger age while leading their side – Shakib Al Hasan (22), Sachin Tendulkar (23), Mohammad Ashraful (23) and Graeme Smith (24).
- 2 – Number of New Zealand captains who have made a higher ODI score than Williamson. Glenn Turner made 171 not out against East Africa in the 1975 World Cup while Fleming made 134 against South Africa in 2003.
Have a great cricketing weekend
Regards
Burnside Cricket