Eight of New Zealand’s top Year 9 and 10 cricket teams will compete in the sixth New Zealand Community Trust secondary school junior boys’ national finals cricket tournament, to be held at Owen Delany Park in Taupo next week.
The competition, which runs from 23 to 26 March, is the culmination of a major national competition that began at the start of the 2008/09 season attracting 148 school entries.
The 2009 finalist schools include: King’s College (Auckland), Hamilton Boys’ High School, St Peter’s School (Cambridge), Francis Douglas Memorial College (New Plymouth), Lindisfarne College (Hastings), Hutt International Boys’ School, Christchurch Boys’ High School and Otago Boys’ High School.
This prestigious development tournament competition has already seen a number of players graduate to the ranks of first class cricket. They include: Corey Anderson (Christchurch Boys’ High School), George Worker (Palmerston North Boys’ High School), and Harry Boam (Wellington College). White Fern Sophie Devine (Tawa College) also played in the inaugural tournament.
All the schools entered in the competition initially played knockout matches within their Major Cricket Associations, with the winners making it through to this year’s finals, along with the runners-up of the two associations with the most entries – Northern Districts and Central Districts – a total of eight schools.
For the national finals tournament the eight schools are divided into two pools of four. The schools in each pool play round robin matches against each other over the first three days of the finals. They are then ranked on their results and on day four play crossover matches to determine the final placings and eventual winner of the 2009 NZCT Cup.
Pool A:
King’s College, St Peter’s School, Francis Douglas Memorial College, Otago Boys’ High School
Pool B:
Hutt International Boys’ School, Hamilton Boys’ High School, Lindisfarne College, Christchurch Boys’ High School
Otago Boys’ High School, joint winners in 2007, are the only school returning to the finals after competing in last year’s competition. Hamilton Boys’ High School, Francis Douglas Memorial College, Lindisfarne College and Christchurch Boys’ High School have been in previous finals, with Christchurch Boys’ High School (2004, 2005) and Hamilton Boys’ High School (joint winners 2007) having been previous NZCT Cup winners.
Three schools will be making their first appearance at the tournament this year – King’s College, St Peter’s School and Hutt International Boys’ School.
The national finals’ tournament will be officially opened at 9.15am on Monday, 23 March. The first round matches start at 10.30am. The draw for day one is:
Pool A:
King’s College v St Peter’s School, Francis Douglas Memorial College v Otago Boys’ High School
Pool B:
Hamilton Boys’ High School v Lindisfarne College, Hutt International Boys’ School v Christchurch Boys’ High School
No comments:
Post a Comment