South Island Primary Tournament

The Canterbury Country Primary team had a very successful South Island Tournament finishing second to Christchurch after five extremly hot days. A draw against Otago Country where the they successfully blocked out for a couple of hours meant that Country relied on Nelson to upset Chrishurch on the last day to take a share of the tournament. Unfortunately, Nelson were not able to do this. Still, it was a successful tournament with first innings wins over South Canterbury, Marlborough, Mid Canterbury and West Coast and the draw against Otago Country. The batting was very good throughout the five days with only 20 wickets being lost through these games (as oposed to the 43 wickets they took). There was some good consistent batting from Will Hamilton and Josh Mariu and consistent spin bowling from Nathan Cook and Charlie Sidey. Will Wroe was the pick of the pace men with 5/22 being his best return. Will also made a crucial 39 on the first day to get the innings moving on a slow pitch. The other south players contributed well. Edgar Paterson steadied the ship in four innings with long innings also taking some good catches and making a good run out. Michael Hughes shared the keeping duties and took some stunning catches and Michael Carstons bowled tidy opening spells, chipping out some good batsmen.


Will Wroe blasts it in against South Canterbury



Day 1: South Canterbury100 (C Sidey 4/14, W Wroe 2/12) and 9/1 lost on first innings to Canterbury Country 122/7 (W Hamilton 21, J Mariu 20, W Wroe 39; B Aitken 3/40)

Day 2: Marlborough 157/7 (H Murphy 44*, J Mariu 3/36) lost on first innings to Canterbury Country 161/4 (J Mariu 57*, R Mariu 43)

Day 3: Canterbury Country 154/6 (W Hamilton 31, M Power 28) drew with Otago Country 114/9 (B Laing 28, W Wroe 5/22)

Day 4: Mid Canterbury 160/8 (B Niles 40, G Hunt 26, L O’Connor 41; C Sidey 3/15, N Cook 2/23) lost on first innings to Canterbury Country 171/2 (W Hamilton 23, J Mariu 57*, H Sidey 52*)

Day 5: West Coast 153 (J Ryder 32, R Dhakal 66; N Cook 4/39, W Wroe 2/15) & 41/3 lost on first innings to Canterbury Country 167/1 (W Hamilton 87*, J Mariu 35*, E Paterson 21)

There were also four Country South boys in action for the West Coast. Tim Bridgman had a great run of batting (36, 53* & 49); Tim Hauschild picked up 2 wickets in each of the first 4 matches; Jack Ryder took 3/9 against Southland Country and hit 32 against Canterbury Country and Lachie Stove picked up 2 wickets against North Otago.