Weather spoils sporting weekend

Grant Hassall & Travis Stewart

The wet weather from the weekend put the kibosh on most local sport.

All three Soffe Cup tennis games were rained off, with each of the six clubs scheduled to play claiming nine points each. Okaiawa, therefore, continue to lead with 64.5, with Rotokare (62.5) and Stratford (53.5) rounding out the top three. However, Okaiawa has its bye this coming Saturday in round seven.

Meanwhile, the north-south croquet fixture, for the Edna Wills Trophy, was abandoned on Sunday without a mallet being touched. Scheduled for the New Plymouth club, it is hoped that a suitable date can be found in the near future.

The dampness also saw the postponement of the Cross Country Rentals-sponsored Taranaki mixed pairs bowls at Okato. A new date for the remaining four teams is still to be determined

Only one game out of four was able to get in play in on day two of the Alpha Sports premier tw-day competition.

Francis Douglas started the second day at 83 for 7 looking to chase down NPOB’s first innings 192, unfortunately they could only manage to put on three more runs as left arm spinner Viranchi Upadhyay bowled superbly. Upadhyay took all three wickets to fall in the morning with him finishing with figures of 6 for 25.

Asked to follow on FDMC’s fortunes didn’t get any better as only number 112 batsman Jack Southern made double figures by scoring 10. FDMC was dismissed for just 38 giving NPOB an outright win by an innings 68 runs. Upadhyay completed an impressive individual day picking up another five-wicket bag, this time five for five.

The win will give NPOB a head start on the rest of the competition with all other matches finishing with no results.

It was a similar story for Sunday’s semi-finals with only one game being able to be played. Again, it was NPOB who was able to keep their pitch dry and play started on time with Stratford winning the toss and electing to bat first. A decision they would soon regret as NPOB’s opening pairing of Jarrod Ritson and Jordan Gard proved a handful. Ritson returned figures of 5 for 21 while Gard completed his 10 overs with figures of 4 for 8. Stratford were all out for just 50 in the 25th over. Veteran Paul Lightoller top scored with 14 not out. NPOB openers Sebastian Lauderdale-Smith and Myles Simkin soon squashed any thoughts that there were demons in the pitch as they both teed off with the winning runs coming up in the 6th over as NPOB won by 10 wickets. Lauderdale – Smith ended on 27 off 23 balls and Simkin 20 off 11.

In the other semi-final, NPMU were set to host Inglewood however water had seeped under the covers at Lynmouth Park, all efforts were made but without the drying weather play was eventually abandoned at 4pm. Marist will go through to the final courtesy of being higher qualifiers.

The final is scheduled for Saturday 18th December at Pukekura Park, 11am start.