Following damp conditions in the lead up to finals day, the day dawned sunny and there was only one delayed start while the outfield dried on Burnside 1.

In the OEM Audio Premiership match, Burnside West faced Old Boys Collegians, with the home side winning the toss and batting first.

After being in some early strife, the Burnside West recovery was led by a 120 run partnership between Carl Huyser (70) and Tom Zohrab (46) and the innings was finished off in positive fashion by David Zohrab and Alex Tait.

Harrison Cox and Dylan Hunter both picked up two wickets for Old Boys Collegians as Burnside West scored 218/7 from their 50 overs.

The Old Boys Collegians innings start mirrored that of Burnside West and at 3/7 things looked grim.  But it was a series of good partnerships that got Old Boys Collegians back into contention, all which involved skipper Jack Lewis.  Firstly 50 with Dylan Hunter, who made 40, 100 with Thomas Graham (34) and two smaller stands, the final one with Lakshay Mehra, which got Old Boys across the line, winning with 5 overs to spare.

But it was Lewis who anchored the innings, playing a superb player of the match captains knock, bringing up his first Premier one-day hundred at a run-a-ball, ending on 109*.  With the ball for Burnside West, Will O’Brien picked up 3/24 off his 10 overs.

It was a low scoring but exciting match at Edgar McIntosh Park in the Championship final.  Hosts Merivale Papanui batted first and struggled against a demanding Old Boys Collegians attack.  At 90/9 after 35 overs, odds were long of Merivale Papanui seeing out the 50 overs, but thanks to a rear guard action by Ben MacLennan and Samuel Medhurst who batted with a broken thumb, they hung in and got through to 132.  Jordan Braithwaite and Ashan Wanasinghe picked up two wickets each for Old Boys Collegians.

Old Boys Collegians got off to a quick start with Scott Willoughby he usual aggressive self, but when he went for 23 there was a steady procession of wickets as the Merivale Papanui bowlers built pressure and Ben Stewart of the remaining batters could make double figures.

An excellent spell up front by Samuel Medhurst set the tone, claiming 4/37 and his brother Bert Medhurst finished the game off taking 4/6.  Old Boys Collegians out for 79.

Halswell hosted Riccarton in the Division 1 final in another low scoring and exciting game.  Halswell batted first and lost early wickets before Amila Korale hit a quick fire 61, helping Halswell to 122.  Rueben Stoffers was the pick of the Riccarton bowlers, taking 4/12, while Angus Jemmett took 3/26.

Riccarton lost regular wickets with Josh Bridgman making 26 and holding things together but as wickets continued to fall the pressure continued to rise with Riccarton managing to eke out the final runs with the last pair of Daniel Rawson and Jagdeep Singh at the crease to take the title.

In a late ground change, East Shirley hosted Riccarton in the Division 2 final at Burnside Park.

It was East Shirley who batted first and while they couldn’t post the sort of total they had in previous rounds, they made it through to 126 thanks to some lower order resistance by Vatan Brar and Harish Sharma.  Ricky Collins was the pick of the Riccarton bowlers with 3/41.

Despite a good start from Sunny Singh, Riccarton wickets fell on a regular basis and it was left to the last pair of Nouman Maqsood and Collins to find the final 25 runs, a task they were unable to achieve, with East Shirley winning by 10 runs.

 Big thanks to our match officials David Henderson, Anvesh Achanta, Matthew Hill, Darren Thomason, Altamash Askari, Brent Littmoden, Mark Wood and Shreyash Kalyanaraman for their efforts in making the day possible.

Article added: Monday 27 February 2023