The defending champions were the top qualifier but had to dig deep to win by three wickets.
Invercargill Old Boys won the toss and elected to bat. Economical bowling and pressure from the fieldsmen had Old Boys bowled out for 133 runs in the 49th over.
Appleby’s Kieran Lloyd had taken two early wickets before Brendan Domigan (55) and Kieran O’Neill (20) got Old Boys back on solid ground.
Jacob Downing took the key wicket of Domigan when he was caught out by Jamie Clark. Clark also caught out O’Neill who was one of Reid Murray’s two wickets.
Jacob ended the innings with figures of four wickets for 17 runs from his 9.3 overs. Sam Downing did not take a wicket but conceded just four runs from his six overs.
Appleby batters were two wickets down for 26 runs from seven overs when the drizzly weather returned to Queens Park.
After the rain delay the Duckworth Lewis Stern method was used to recalculate the target to 94 runs from 24 overs.
Old Boys bowlers Chris Case and Jake Kura cleaned out the middle order batsmen leaving Appleby in all sorts of trouble at seven wickets down for 46 runs in the 14th over.
Enter No 8 and No 9 batters Ryan Rusk and Prashant Singh. Rusk (41 not out) batted superbly, hitting two sixes and four boundaries to calmly carry Appleby to victory.
Singh was unbeaten on 14 runs when celebrations began with three overs to spare.
By John Lamgford
