King's totally dominates St Kentigern College

St Kentigern College 154/7 in 50 overs
King’s College 155/1 in 26 overs
King’s win by 9 wickets

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The struggling St Kentigern College, with four consecutive losses, visited for the penultimate league match of the season.

They won the toss and chose to bat. This relatively inexperienced team with just three players returning this year batted at snail’s pace and was not helped by the testing and sharp King’s opening attack of Muhammad Abbas and Louis Anderson.

When the opening attack was rested, St Kent’s had struggled to 16/1 but would have taken immense satisfaction from the fact that the damage was minimal.

Seb Macdonald and Nick Tapper maintained the pressure during the next ten overs until spin arrived in the form of Toby Irvine in the 22^nd over.

After a short burst from Patrick Maher, Cory Dickson joined Irvine in a twin-spin attack that rushed the match into the 40^th over with the latter picking up 3 wickets in a brilliant spell of ten overs.

The gulf in the experience, skill, confidence and intensity on display was evident in the opposition run-rate not reaching 3 RPO until the 47^th over.

The opening bowlers and Tapper shared the last ten overs and conceded a miserly 55 runs in spite of the visitors having plenty of wickets in hand. The fielding was almost faultless and the bowlers would have felt well supported throughout the first innings.

Achindra Molamure was promoted to open the batting alongside the regular opener Nathan Robinson. Both openers were untroubled by the inexperienced bowling attack and prospered as they seemed to race each other to the half-century mark.

Robinson feasted on the bowling from the start whilst Molamure was more circumspect. The partnership reached 50 runs in the 11^th over and the century came up in the 20^th over.

The 142 run partnership was broken in the 24^th over and King’s cantered to their easiest victory this year at the end of the 26^th over by a 9 wicket margin.

Next week, the team travels to Auckland Grammar School for the last match of the competition round before the final against Westlake Boys, a week later.