Fri, Nov 26, 2021 9:28 PM
T20 competition begins
Peter Jones
Celtic and Wairau Valley opened the 2021-22 Marlborough cricket senior Twenty20 competition with victories at Horton Park tonight.
Valley were only able to muster a mediocre target of 102-9 on the number one ground, but bowled Marlborough Boys’ College out for 71 in the 18th over to win by 31 runs.
On the number three wicket, Celtic bowled well to restrict Renwick to 107-9 from their 20 overs, then chased it down in the 15th over, to prevail by seven wickets.
Renwick’s innings was based around 32 from 24 balls from Kirk Nicholas, while lower order batsmen Keiran Gaudin and Blair Timms chipped in with 17 and 14 respectively.
However the damage was done at the top of the order, predominantly by paceman Jaden Adams, who ended up with 3-18 from his four overs. Ben Holdaway also came to the party, snaring four lower order batsmen for 31 runs.
Renwick picked up the scalp of former rep player Josh Poole with no runs on the board, but Greg Knowles (16 from 12) and Tom Sutherland added 40 runs, then Sutherland combined with Jerrym Lamb to take Celtic comfortably to their target. Sutherland ended with an unbeaten 52 from 43 balls, while Lamb was also not out, having scored 37 from 26.
Akhil Bhardwaj, Gaudin and Eden Pettigrew picked up a wicket apiece.
A well-paced 40 off 47 balls from opener Greg Stretch, plus 25 from Sam Boyce, helped Valley limp to their total of 102. The MBC attack was spearheaded by Joel Pannell, who picked up 3-25, Josh Alexander, 2-23, and spinner Tim Petrie who bagged 2-15 from four.
MBC lost a couple of early wickets but at 48-3 in the 12th over the game was in the balance. However, the loss of four wickets for just 11 runs left them struggling against a steady Valley attack, all of whom picked up at least one wicket. Pick of the crop was seamer Sam Boyce with 4-14 from 3.5 overs.
Top scorers for MBC were Hunter Ruffell and Tom Leonard, who both amassed 13.
