Brayden Thomas provided another glimpse of his talent on Saturday in Southland ILT Premier League club cricket action.
Thomas racked up an impressive 96 as Southland Boys’ High School recorded a victory over Waikoikoi.
Last week, Thomas was named in the Otago under-17 team for the national tournament at Lincoln next month and on Saturday proved his worth.
Waikoikoi posted a competitive 213, batting first. It was led by Todd Thayer through his knock of 67 and Blair McKenzie’s unbeaten 44.
Opening the batting, Thomas then went about picking off the required runs before he was eventually bowled by Michael Hall four short of a century.
The damage had already been done, with Southland Boys’ 183 for three when Thomas departed. Sean Withy ensured Southland Boys’ knocked off the remaining runs with the captain finishing unbeaten on 43.
Southland Boys’ had seven wickets and 6.3 overs up their sleeve when it reached the target.
Just a matter of seven days after picking up seven wickets in a win over Metro, Marist’s James Bell again starred with the ball in the game against Invercargill-Old Boys on Saturday.
Bell took six for 26 to help limit Invercargill-Old Boys to 149 batting first.
Sam Nicholson and Ryan Acland chipped in with 36 and 33 respectively, but no-one was able to kick on to a big score as Bell took charge with the ball.
In reply, Marist aggressively chased the target, led by the in-form Conor Rodden who posted 64 opening the batting.
Jeremy Boyle also contributed 33 as Marist overhauled the required runs with 24.2 overs and five wickets to spare.
The Metro Tigers looked set to record their first victory of the 2018-19 season on Saturday but came up short in the chase against Appleby.
Batting first, Appleby posted 233 all out, led by Venkat Kotte (56) who missed selection in the Southland Hawke Cup team this week.
Veteran Clint Goad also chipped in with 39 to put together a tricky total for a Metro line-up which has struggled with the bat to date this season.
However, Parminder Singh (45) and Athwal Gursharan (42) put Metro in a strong position in its chase.
At 127 for two, with just under 30 overs still to bat, Metro was in a commanding position.
However, Sam Deuchrass, Elliot Dawson, and Jacob Downing teamed up to take the final eight wickets with Metro posting just 44 more runs. Metro was bowled out for 171, 62 runs short of victory.
- Logan Savory
