History made at Bay Oval

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

Cricket history, of two kinds, was made at Blake Park last Saturday.

Parking around the cricket wickets at Blake Park was at an absolute premium. The Bay Oval hosted the time-honored BOPCA Williams Cup finale, with the other three cricket pitches at Blake Park, seeing three Western Bay of Plenty Cricket senior grassroots titles contested for the first time.

A dramatic increase in senior grassroots numbers saw the former Western Bay of Plenty Cricket B Grade competition, replaced with Division One, Two and Three competitions. The revised format provided all teams with a place in the local cricket environment, that meets their sides aspirations.

At the other end of the spectrum, the Bay of Plenty Cricket premier Williams Cup recognised ninety years since the (Rotorua) City Cricket Club won the first Bay of Plenty wide championship.

The 2023 Williams Cup title decider matched up the biggest rivalry in Western Bay of Plenty Cricket in the last few decades.

Mount Maunganui won the toss and decided to bat against Otumoetai Cadets, in the battle of the bridge fixture.

When opener Gagandeep Singh Samra, was dismissed for his sides top score of 52, his side were in a relatively strong position at 82 for the loss of two wickets.

Bay of Plenty representative skipper Ben Pomare belted a hard fought 31. As the overs ticked over, the Mount tail fired, with number ten batsman Craig Baldry hitting an unbeaten 24 runs.

The encounter was well and truly up for grabs, with the Mount Maunganui representatives finishing their allotted fifty overs, at 202 for the loss of eight wickets.

Sitting in the heart of the Mount Maunganui scrum of supporters gave an interesting perspective to the Cadets run chase.

Cadets opening pair of Fergus Lellman and Marcel Collett, ran plenty of singles and twos in reaching the 82 run mark, before Collett was dismissed for 42. Fergus Lellman continued on at the crease to compile 44 runs before being adjudged LBW.

The game was quickly slipping away from the Mount at three down with 147 runs on the board.

However sitting next to the Mount 'Prophet', who closed his eyes and came out with "I can see 170 for seven" produced some mirth from the Mount Maunganui faithful.

From disaster waiting in the wings, the Green and Gold team bowlers upped the ante and slowed the pace of the reply, in taking five wickets for just 24 runs.

With the match momentum turned on its head, the two younger Collett brothers came together in the middle at the Bay Oval, in an attempt to rescue their teams fortunes.

Liam Collet, led the attempt for victory in defying everything that the Mount bowlers could fire at him, with an unbeaten 16 runs. Equally resolute was Dary Collett who compiled a match winning 7 not out.

The scorebook will show that Cadets squeezed home with eight balls to spare and just two wickets in hand.

All the players left the Bay Oval, knowing that they had produced a game that fully measured up to the finest traditions of Williams Cup hard-fought contests over the last ninety years