Skipper to the fore as Marist win

ROBYN EDIE/Southland Times

JAMMIN' IT: Marist batsman James Mulvey jams down on a ball during his team's Southland club cricket one-day final game against Southland Boys' High School at Queens Park.

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Marist captain Jason Milne spun his team to a Southland senior club cricket one-day title on Saturday when he turned in an impressive display with the ball to help his team beat Southland Boys' High School in the final.

Top qualifiers Marist batted first in the decider and got into their work in gloomy and often drizzly conditions at Queens Park.

Marist marched through to 209 for six off 41.2 overs and, with the hard-hitting Boyce Anderson just starting to find the fence regularly, a total of almost 300 wasn't out of the question.

However, as the light showers turned into full-blown rain, play had to be halted.

When play resumed, the reduced- overs calculations weighed heavily in favour of the pupils who needed just 125 from 25 overs when they started their innings at bat.

To Marist's credit they pushed for the game to be restarted, wanting to win the title with a result on the field rather than taking the title through an abandoned game because they were the top qualifiers after the round-robin series. However, that willingness to get out on to the field swung the game in the favour of Southland Boys', especially when they made a sound start to their chase through opening batsman Jonathan Homer (33).

However, what followed was a true captain's spell with the ball to win Marist the title.

Milne brought himself on at the Gala St end of the ground and had immediate success, chipping out opener Jonty Brown.

Milne put his foot on the throat of the Southland Boys' scoring and, with help from fellow spinner Kent Donaldson at the other end, the asking rate for the school team did climb a little.

With one eye on the scoreboard the Southland Boys' batsmen dished up some loose shots and with that came wickets.

They were eventually bowled out for 103 in the 23rd over to be 22 runs short of victory.

Marist was consistently the best- performed team in the 2009-10 one-day competition series and were deserved winners on Saturday.

- © Fairfax NZ News

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