Old Boys secure third place

Press, 31 March 1980, Page 21

Old Boys secure third place

Old Boys took third place in the senior' cricket championship when they won a lowscoring game against Bumside West at Burnside on Saturday. They won by three wickets, and their score was the only one in the match to exceed 100.

| beat Lancaster Park 155 and 123 by. 10 wickets Riccarton 216 and 173 beat Sydenham 130 and 189 by 70 runs. Old Boys 68 and 126/7 beat Burnside-West 95 and 96 by three wickets St Albans 228 and 194/4 dec beat East-Shirley 145 and 78 by 199 runs. The St Albans left-handed, Les Smith saw the season out in fine fashion with, a century: in his last five innings he scored 253 and was I out only three times. The only other batsman to reach 50 was Sydenham’s Bill Thomson, whose 64 was his best for the season. However; there were some fine bowling figures. Les I

Fifth place went to St Albans, which defeated EastShirley by a wide margin, and Sydenham finished last when it went down to Riccarton.

The final order was: Old Collegians 1, Lancaster Park 2, Old Boys 3, Burnside-West 4, St Albans 5, East-Shirley 6, Riccarton 7, Sydenham 8.

Scores were:— Old Collegians 278 and 4/0

Watson (St Albans) took six ing was extinguished by an for 22, Alan McLean (Syden- outstanding second-wicket ham) six for 28, and Riccar- partnership between Les ton’s David Stead had five Smith and Rod Moore.

for- 66. ST ALBANS DOMINANT St Albans farewelled its English professional, Trevor Jesty, with a decisive defeat of East-Shirley. Jesty himself contributed an unbeaten 20, but, with Les Watson at his imposing best and solidly supported by Peter Hill’s, Jesty’s medium-paced bowling was not needed to achieve victory by 199 runs. Any prospect of East-Shir-lev 83 runs behind on the

first innings,- making quick inroads into the St Albans batting on Saturday morn-

Smith could have been caught twice while cutting when in the nineties, but he thoroughly deserved his century and reached three figures with two perfectly played square cuts. His lofted driving was just as impressive and the partnership was worth 158 runs. St Albans was able to set East-Shirley the imposing target of 278 runs. SPINNERS IN CONTROL

Riccarton’s useful first innings -advantage, achieved the previous week-end, was

sufficient to carry it to a 71run win and out of any danger of finishing the season at the bottom of the championship points table. But its opponent, Sydenham, shared some of the honours at Hagley 3 on Saturday. The Sydenham spinners, Alan McLean and Mike Dolden, found a liking for the damp pitch in the morning and Riccarton. 117 for three 1 at the resumption, lost the remainder of its batsmen, for just 56 runs. McLean and Dolden both had tight control against' batsmen who were reluctant to attempt to wrest the initiative, and McLean’s figures were his best in first grade. So Sydenham’s final assignment of the summer was to score 260 runs to win. with no pressing time problem. By lunch it had al-. ready had one set-back, hav-l ing lost Kevin Congdon.

There was a sound effort by Geoff Cooke, before a m i d d 1 e-order recession tipped the scales dramatically in Riccarton’s favour. Bill Thomson was still there and while Warren Bell was with him. there was hope, but they went when the me-dium-pacers returned and Riccarton soon finished off the tail. Just as Sydenham had used bowling guile to make inroads into Riccarton’s batting earlier in the day, so the main thrust of the Riccarton attack was David Stead. BATTING STRUGGLE

High School Old Boys began the day needing 49 runs to beat Burnside-West, with five wickets in hand. On the damp pitch this looked to be no easy task and when Ross Baylis was run out at 88 Burnside looked to be back in the game. Another unnecessary run out of Gary McDonald when the score was 99 again lifted Burnside’s hopes, but sensible batting by Dayle Hadlee and Gary Saunders carried the day for Old Boys.. Hadlee batted competently, watchful of anything on the wicket but willing to hit the loose ball, and Saunders was not afraid to hit out.

. Tony Farrant bowled competently for Burnside, but bowling in the wet conditions was not easy.