Kittle makes a noteworthy debut as King’s savours first victory of 2023

In search of their first win in this fiercely competitive Premier grade, King’s fielded two debutants today – Charles Law a left-arm pacer with lots of potential and a talented opening batter Oliver Kittle, also a south-paw. The visitors were the recently promoted and highly confident Takapuna Grammar team, on a two-match winning streak. Takapuna won the toss and chose to bat.

King’s pace bowling quartet of Liam Denny, Finn Priddy, Tim Hamilton and James Bamford leaked runs and wides in the opening three matches and were a tad low on confidence. The Takapuna team was packed with batters on form, so a nervous first session was anticipated in the King’s dug out. Seemingly against the run of play King’s picked up two wickets via Denny, in the opening seven overs that he and Priddy delivered but the run rate was constantly hovering over 5 per over. With the long list of in-form batsmen to come, things were looking ominous for King’s.

Skipper, Morgan Tapper was hurried into a tactical change in the 8^th over and brought Bamford and James Nelson into the attack. Bamford opened with a maiden over and Nelson conceded two runs via wides but picked up the 3rd wicket in his opening over, causing the run rate to drop. From that point onwards the run rate went on a steady decline. Justin Nori and Samar Singh maintained the stranglehold and the slightly threatening 4^th wicket partnership was disrupted by Singh when he came on in the 21^st over with the score on 72/4. The trio of spinners claimed 5 key wickets to decimate the middle order, allowing the main pacemen to come back and clean out the tail and Takapuna posting a mouth-watering target of 117 for King’s to register their first victory at the top level, in 2023. Incidentally, Denny had posted his best bowling figures since his debut almost two years ago. He is becoming the spearhead of the King’s pace attack and with more outings like this, should secure the desired results for the team that he has now represented for the 20^th time, in the 50 over competition.

In pursuit of a small target of less than 2.5 RPO, this was a perfect opportunity for a young opening batter to debut and Oliver Kittle took full advantage of this moment. It was a dream week for Kittle who also debuted a few days earlier in a T20 against Avondale College, where he showcased his mental toughness, ability to rotate the strike, speed between the wickets and the high value he placed on his wicket. In the company of Charles Knight, Kittle rode the early storm, and both settled into a promising partnership before the former was induced into nicking one to the keeper.

Kittle’s ability to pinch singles at ease was well received by his team-mates in the dug-out and so was the cut shots past point and third man off the blade of Knight. Kittle’s two thirty-plus partnerships, initially with Knight and then with Morgan Tapper would have gone a long way to ease the nerves and give him the reassurance that he belongs at this highest level of school cricket. When Kittle was induced into a false shot in the 23^rd over, King’s were just 37 runs away from a morale boosting victory which was reached by Tapper and Nelson in the 31^st.

A huge victory, given the significant amount of trepidation the team had to contend with at the start of this match.

Debut: Charles Law; Oliver Kittle

DNB:  S Singh, J Bamford, L Denny, T Hamilton, J Nori, S Illerbrun, F Priddy, C Law 

King’s win by 8 wickets.