Sideline Sid Sports correspondent & historian www.sunlive.co.nz

Sunlive readers have followed the journey of a group of four young Western Bay of Plenty Cricket players, from promising teenage talent to emergence as NZC Major Association players, in this column over the last few years.

Winding back the clock to November 2017, a fifteen year old Tim Pringle became the youngest Bay of Plenty senior representative player, when selected to play against Northland.

Pringle, was joined by three other promising youth players in Ben Pomare, Fergus Lellman and Taylor Bettelheim over the next two seasons, in the Bay team.

Ben Pomare, Fergus Lellman and Tim Pringle, earned selection for New Zealand Under 19 verses their Bangladesh counterparts in October 2019. Pomare and Lellman then made the cut for the New Zealand Under 19 side, which played in the ICC Under 19 World Cup in South Africa in 2020.

Meanwhile Taylor Bettelheim was taking a different path to Major Association cricket, scoring a truckload of runs at the top of the order, for the Bay of Plenty senior men's team.

The current cricket season which is quickly coming to a close, has seen all four young men take the leap from promising talent to established Major Association senior representative players.

Almost exactly twelve months ago, I talked to Tim Pringle who was about to leave for the Netherlands to play for his father's former club of Den Haag. When asked about his expectations, he replied "I want to play to the best of my ability for my Dutch club and see how far it takes me",

TJG Pringle quickly made his mark in Dutch cricket, being plucked from club cricket to play for the Netherlands against England in ODI action. In a 'pinch yourself to see if it's real' moment, Tim was selected to represent the Netherlands at the 2022 ICC Men's T20 World Cup in Australia.

Returning home Pringle was rewarded with a ND Cricket professional contract, and had immediate success in the nearly completed 2022/23 season. To date Tim has belted 172 runs and taken a remarkable 35 wickets over the three forms of the game.

The most intense position in a cricket team is the man with the gloves behind the stumps. Bay of Plenty Captain, Ben Pomare, who made his Plunket Shield debut at the tail-end of last season, has fulfilled the duties of the Northern Districts A keeper in the current cricket year.

Batting at the top of the order in first class cricket is a daunting challenge. The last six months have been the breakout period for Fergus Lellman, who has played two first-class games for Northern Districts, and earned selection in the NZC Development Squad. This follows a call-up for a New Zealand XI against Pakistan A in January 2021.

Taylor Bettelheim, has become a permanent fixture in the ND A team, batting at the top of the order, in the last two seasons. Two years ago he wrote this name into Bay Cricket history, in being just the third Bay player to break through the two-hundred run mark, with an unbeaten 211 against Waikato Valley.

A change of allegiance to Waikato Valley this season, has seen Bettelheim add two further centuries to his Bay of Plenty four three-figure scores, including 179 against the Bay just a few weeks ago.

With the oldest of the group in Ben Pomare being just 22 years of age, and the 2023/24 cricket season coming onto the horizon, the cricket world looks to hold no limits for the four young Bay of Plenty raised men.