The Panthers had a last over win this week, while the Championship side knocked over OBC cheaply in the first innings of their 2-day game. Elsewhere, things didn’t go our way. We’re a little light on reports this week too, but enjoy those that were sent in!

Congratulations to Ritwik Parupalli, who made his Senior debut for our Championship side vs OBC. Ritwik was a very late call-up to the side after an off-field accident, but marked his debut with a couple of wickets, taking 2-4. He is Senior player #293. Sadly, we still haven’t got a photograph of Ritwik in action, but hope there will be many more years of achievements to mark!

Congratulations to Andy Richards, whose 76 not only set up the Panthers' win, but took him past 700 runs for the season and into the top 20 batting seasons of all time for MPCC.

Upcoming club social events

The MPCC Curry Night has been tentatively set for Saturday 18 March. Ash Reddy has once again offered to put on a range of curries for our members and guests – thanks in advance, Ash, for your generosity. There will be a choice of curries and a free stubby in exchange for your $22, plus the chance to see some of MPCC’s self-described alphas fail to deal with a slightly spicy sauce.

For this event to go ahead, we need to confirm attendance from at least 20 people. Please email mpcricket@xtra.co.nz or sign up on the noticeboard in the clubrooms if you’re keen to come along.

Match Reports from Saturday 18th February..

MP Sporting Edge Championship vs OBC @ Hagley 4 (2DAY – day 1)

No report.

MP Sporting Edge Div.1 vs Heathcote @ Heathcote (2DAY – day 1)

No report.

MP BBS Timbers Division 3 vs Richmond @ Edgar Mac 2 (Loss)

Div 3 had 9 players on Thursday night, 11 by Friday, but 10 by the time we turned up at 12.30. Not a great start, but Lachie's uncle Bruce Cameron stepped in to fill the gap, with some concern from some of his former Lancaster Park clubmates on the no. 1. Put into bat, we opened with Jamie O'Connor and Kris Rowe, who got us off to a reasonable start before Rowey returned for 9 with the score at 20. This soon became 27-4 with Nana (13), Max (0) and Lachie (2) unable to hang around. Mario (7) and Himanshu (15) got us to 43 before Mario was out, but we then had another procession to slump to 54-7. This brought together Princely Dcunha and Glen Bellam, who battled away for a good chunk of the remaining overs, with Princely top scoring with 25 and Bellsy adding 16 to get us to 91, before both were out. Last pair Dave (1*) and Mintu (7) added a few more, including a 6 over cow from Mintu, as we wrapped up at 99 all out in the 36th over. Deck seemed fine to me!

Mintu and Rowey (1-18 off 6) opened up for us and did well with the ball early on, with Richmond at 25-3 after 7. Max also bowled well, with a miserly 1-10 off 7. Dave bowled two terrible overs and hooked himself, with Bellsy taking over. After shipping 8 off his first over, Bellsy got into a nice rhythm, ending up 1-20 off his 8, while Bruce sent down a few tweakers at the other end, without luck. Richmond steadily chipped away, before giving away a wicket with the scores tied, leaving Mintu at 3-21 of 6.3 and Richmond to the total 6 down in the 33rd over. A better battle than the game had looked like being thanks to Princely and Bellsy with the bat and most of the bowlers' disciplined lines, but a loss in the end.

Dave M

MP Frame'n'Copy Panthers vs Heathcote @ Barnett 2 (Win)

The Panthers made the trip across town to the picturesque Barnett Park, nestled in a valley surrounded by multi-million dollar mansions up on the hills. Skipper Sunnie won the toss and decided to bowl first (despite not looking at the pitch as he had turned up late!). It was the right call anyway as it was fairly green and there was a bit of weather around.

Andy A and Roger started off well bowling good lines but without making a breakthrough. Harsha and Jack were then brought on and both were bowling well but the batsmen were set and were ticking the score over. Steve and Ronnie were then brought on. Steve finally made the breakthrough in his second over, deceiving the batsmen with a nice slower ball which crashed into his stumps. Ronnie bowled well at times, but was let down by some casual fielding by the Panthers. He was eventually rewarded in his fifth over, a sharp stumping by Dean. Andy A and Roger came back on at the death. Roger picked up a wicket, a catch to Andy A fielding at backward point. Andy A then picked up a couple of wickets, both bowled. The second one clipping the outside edge of the top of off stump which nudged the leg side bail off with the offside bail remaining in place! Heathcote ended the innings on 166/5 after 40.

The Panthers opened the batting with Andy R and Dean, who for the second week in a row put on a 50+ run opening partnership. Andy R again playing a supporting role to Dean, who played very positively with nicely timed pulls and drives. Dean eventually fell for 33. Nick was next in, promoted up the order this week, he played confidently and was nice to see him in the runs this week with 22. Sunnie then came in and nudged it around but then tried to play across the line to their wiley old opening bowler, was adjudged LBW for 3. Andy A came in with about 40 odd runs to get and was planning on bringing the team home with Andy R, however he fell for 4 with a debatable LBW decision. Panic hadn't yet set in with the Panthers as we still had a few decent bats to come. Steve came in and played some classy shots, but was then stumped on 8. Then the backbone of our innings, Andy R who played his usual style, plenty of nice cover drives and pull shots, fell with a leading edge and was caught at mid-wicket for an awesome 76. Roger then arrived at the crease and picked up a brace but was then bowled. A bit of panic arrived at the Panthers camp, we needed 5 runs off the last over, which was the exact equation last week when we were bowling which we failed to defend. Harsha then picked up two twos off the first two balls, next ball he was caught. Up stepped the man, the myth, the legend, Ronnie Khuu. The clutch player nudged the ball towards mid-on and sprinted through for the single. So Panthers win with 2 balls to spare!

It was great to see the Panthers win after a few losses on the trot. We bowled well at times and didn't let the scoring get out of control, but failed to pick up wickets regularly for the second week in a row. With the bat, the absolute superstar of our innings was Andy R, its great to see he has committed to the Panthers for the rest of the season.

Cheers,

Andy Anderson

MP Geeks on Wheels vs Riccarton @ Bishopdale (Loss)

So it's finals time - and Geeks on Wheels, looking for a marked improvement on last week's unmitigated disaster, were up against Riccarton Everest Warriors on Bishopdale Park. We were joined this week by pitch magician Dakesy, who informed us that the pitch, despite looking a little damp, would play pretty well to start off with, but get harder as the day progressed. So we were looking to win the toss and bat first – we therefore, of course, lost the toss, but Riccarton decided to field, so all was right in the world.

Alan and Thomas opened up for us, and we got off to our usual (it seems) horrendous start. Thomas was given out lbw after (he claims) hitting it, for the second week in a row, by the same umpire (I won’t name names), for a blob - 1/1. Dakesy and Alan then put on a good partnership (most of the runs coming from Alan's bat) before Dakesy was out for a patient 4 - 2/27. That brought myself to the crease, and Alan and I combined for a 45 run partnership (again, most of the runs courtesy of Alan), getting us through to drinks on a respectable 69/2.

First over after drinks I was dismissed for a sloth-like 13 - 3/72. And not long after that Alan was removed for an excellent 46 - 4/75. Karim was the next to go for 6, 5/84. Harry and Pav saw us through to 109 before Harry was dismissed for 15. Pav ran himself out for 18 (he tried to claim Barrel was at fault, but, well, Barrel is the captain and Pav isn't so.....) 7/121. Sam was caught for 10, 8/133, before Nithissh and Sanath (who pulled out, would you believe, a reverse sweep!) saw us through to the end of our 40 overs.

We ended on 8/160, with Nithissh 24* and Sanath 4*. A good effort - the pitch wasn't the easiest to play on, and the bowling wasn't too shabby either. Especially pleasing considering our effort last week. So long as we bowled and fielded well it should have been quite defendable.

We opened up the bowling with Nithissh and Barrel. Riccarton made a steady start, and got through to 29 before Barrel made the first breakthrough. Nithissh took the second not long after, reducing Riccarton to 2/34. When Frosty had them 3/54, things were looking ok – the runs weren't flowing at all, and by all accounts Riccarton didn't have a huge amount of depth in their batting.

Unfortunately, that was as good as it got. A combination of excellent batting from Riccarton, and a relative lack of accuracy from our bowling meant we simply could not break through, nor stem the flow of runs. Their batsmen both scored 50s at around or better than run a ball, and saw Riccarton home with relative ease in the 28th over.

So in the end a loss by 7 wickets. Frosty was the pick of the bowlers with 1/13 from 4, with Nithissh not far behind with 1-31 from 8. Barrel chipped in with a wicket with 1/53 from 7.3. Pav returned 0/23 from 4, Sanath 0/14 from 2, and Karim 0/19 from 2.

 It was a good batting effort, and our ground fielding was solid – we essentially didn't waste any chances. Problem is – there were no chances after the first 3 wickets. We just didn't bowl well enough, and they batted exceedingly well.

If we get both our bowling and batting performing together we should do a lot better next week.

Cheers, Richard

MP Bombay Tandoor Presidents vs Lancaster Park @ Edgar Mac 1 (Loss)

MPCC Tandoor Bombay Gold/Canaries finally had the go ahead to play on the number one at Edgar Mac, first time since the relaying of the pitch and we were most interested on how it would perform in our game against Lancaster Park.  Between the deluge earlier in the week and Humey actually winning a toss, our earlier majority vote of having a bat first was transferred to a "hold the bus" decision to insert Park, especially with the threat of rain later on. The same set up as the previous outing but in the reverse, McBride and Richard Derham opened the event facing off against Pickle and Mendis cautiously with barely a shot in anger until the sixth over, by which time Park had lost McBride (5) to a seeming well judged caught and bowled from Kelum in his second maiden over (all in slow motion). Evans finding Mendis more to his liking, placing a pair of leg side shots to the boundary then Rich got into the act and had one of his own. Pickle bowled a first spell of five stingy overs before being removed, whereupon Frankie struck in his first dropping a shorter length on Derham (who popped the aerial ball round the corner to Steve for the easy pouch), Park 22/2 after 10. This bought the ever dangerous Tim Corry to the crease.  With Dearsley and Kokiri operating for us there was another period of calm with flashes of lightning from Corry in a two over blitz between the seventeenth and eighteenth driving the score from 36/2 to 59/2 with it coming to rest at drinks 66/2. After the break the momentum swung Parks way as Evans and Corry continued to pick off boundaries between some hard run singles and doubles and it wasn't until the introduction of Rob Campbell (he with the multicoloured beard) that a mistake was finally capitalized on and a straight ball missed adjudged to be traveling onto the stumps if it wasn't for the interference of pads, Evans sent off with a well constructed 37. This bought in one of our bogeymen R Genet who tends to dig deep and score freely against us. However, this time we managed to keep him quiet, while Tim unfortunately started to successfully hit out. We certainly didn't help ourselves as we (and I really mean myself) put him down twice on the boundary which just keep him swinging. When Mendis returned for the second time (third spell) in the 35th he effected the fourth wicket P.K. latching on to a Genet (6) prod to midwicket. A mini collapse ensued as Pickle removed both Blair (2) and Toth (0) in his last allowable over. Milnes joining Corry who was unperturbed by the loss of quick wickets continued to hit. That is, hit right up to the point Kapralos penetrated the defenses, debailing the Corry castle and consigning the black ink score of 83. Park's score being 143/7 at that point Stacey having almost unexpectedly having a bat combined with Milnes for another 11 quick runs (5 balls) as Milnes (7) mishit the sixth ball to Kelum off Frankie leaving three balls for Lancaster to play with. Wayne tried to take toll of them and manage 6* to finish the innings at 160/8, Stacey left 5*.  Bowling for us had wickets shared around: SVG 8/1/16/2, Mendis 8/2/28/2 and Kokiri 8/2/36/2 being the doubles dippers.

Talking with Corry during the innings break, the surface was agreed to be a bit tacky but generally very playable so there should be a good game up coming. Steeman pulled out of the opening position so that was offered to SVG (put originally down at 6) to partner Paul Dearsley and he accepted the chance. Wayne and Corry to open the Park defense. Our collaboration lasted 2.3 overs when we lost Paul (5) to a cut in the air gratefully accepted by Matty Blair in the gully/point area only 8 on the board and Hume in early again. Some purposeful hitting from Pickle kept the score ticking over then an uncharacteristic shot to a full toss off Wayne from Hume was leading edged to square leg to be caught comfortably by Alex Milnes, Hume having to depart for 5, score at 39. Bell next in and the scoring rate started to fall off as Park applied the screws and cut a lot of the single potentials off. This built up a degree of frustration which lead to the next wicket. Bell (7) attempting to take the long handle to Cvitanovich (Josh from now on), picked out Tim in the outfield who barely had to move in accepting the catch.  Having a collapse of our own as the score moved from 52/3 to 53/5 as both Millar (0) and Steeman (0) were detached from the pitch by Styles in consecutive balls (Millar falling to miracle catch when Wayne at short gully didn't have time to stand up and just happen to have the hands in the right place at the right time to take a seemingly well timed cut and Jase playing on to a ball spearing in). The hattrick ball was a bit of a fizzer though, short, sitting up and comfortably played away for a single by Campbell. Problem we were now facing was the ability to rotate the strike from one end as another myriad of wickets started to fall as Park transformed into a team of pure athletes stopping and catching anything coming near them. Stace picking his third wicket up in his second over when Josh somehow closed his hands around a perfectly timed straight drive from Rob (4) and the surprise was evident to both teams, MPCC 59/6, 16 overs in. This turned to 66/7 when we lost Mendis for 2 via an LBW from Josh. We then limped to the break in the position of 72/7 Kapralos providing some much needed resistance. Park were playing the game incredibly well offering up the single to Pickle and clamping down on the other end which extenuated the rotation problem to the point when Corry came back, the solid Petros was needing to up the rate and hit out finding Matt Blair again, intercepting the ball before the ground, P.K. 6 off 31 balls and MPCC reduced to 86/8. Frankie (6) tried to stick around but he then fell to another superhuman catch from McBride who is making a habit of taking one hand stunners against us, then Skud got the perfect straight ball from Tim which had him dead in the water. MPCC taken out for another subpar score, the only member getting away with anything being SVG holding his bat 53* (56).  Park bowlers able to stick to their plans better on the day with Styles 8/0/18/3, Corry 8/0/24/3, Josh 8/1/15/2 and Wayne 6/0/27/2.

Despite the one sided result it is always a pleasure to play the lads from Lancaster, mixing it up on the number one leaving it all out there and then mixing it up over drinks and a laugh in the sheds.

Cheers, Pickle.

Subscriptions

Please note that adult playing subscriptions are due for all players. If you have not yet paid your subs or organised an AP with the Treasurer, please organise this urgently. The late subscription rate is $300 ($170 for students).

The club’s bank account details are:

•             Westpac 03 0866 0269318 000

•             Merivale Papanui Cricket Club Inc

When making a transfer please state your full name as a reference.

Facebook ..

Both the Senior and Junior sections of MPCC can be found on Facebook ....

• Click Here for Merivale Papanui Cricket Club
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• Be sure to "LIKE" both pages.

If you have any queries send us an email to mpcricket@xtra.co.nz

Article added: Wednesday 08 March 2023