The CMCA Twenty20 finals were held on Waitangi Day for the top five competition grades.

In the Premiership, defending champions St Albans met Lancaster Park at Hagley 5.  St Albans batted first and lost early wickets before James Southby (32) and Jack Harper (31*) steadied the ship and got Saints through to 129/8.  New recruit Richard Turpie, Connor Sullivan and Ben McCord all claimed two wickets for Lancaster Park.

In reply, Lancaster Park lost a wicket in the first over and never recovered, bowled out for 78 in the face of some excellent St Albans bowling.  Liam McBreen-Smith, Josh Bates and McCord were the only players to provide resistance with the bat while player of the match Harper and James Tapper both claimed 3 scalps.

In the Premier women's final it was defending champions Lancaster Park against Old Boys Collegians.  Park batted first with White Fern and Magician Kate Ebrahim (39*) and Sem Lomani (24*) steering them to 110/2 off their 20.  Livvy Thomson and Fanchea Molony were the wicket takers.

In reply, after the loss of an early wicket, Hayley Aburn (31) and player of the match Allie Mace-Cochrane (47) put together an excellent partnership with contributions and some excellent running between the wickets by Jess Simmons, Abby Gerken and Emma Kench helping Old Boys across the line with an over to spare.

The Championship was the third final that Lancaster Park qualified for and it was third time lucky for the Garrick Park club.  Batting first against Heathcote, they posted 128, with Alistair Burnett anchoring the innings with 60. All rounder Nathan Wingham continued his good season with 19.  Player/coach Abhi Shrikhande was the pick of the Heathcote bowlers with 3/14 while Nick Durham and Tom Payne got two each.

Heathcote remained in the hunt until the final overs with Jordan Horrell (40) and Shrikhande (28) being the main contributors but pressure from Park bowlers told, with player of the match Simon Gallop (4/20) doing most of the damage.

In Division One, Merivale Papanui claimed the spoils over Burnside West.  Merivale posted 142 with Srirag Harish (39) and James Duncan (29) doing most damage.  Burny Martin, Aidan Mikera and Nick Peoples were the pick of the Burnside bowlers.  In reply Burnside were bowled out for 87.  Jason Mckenzie (24) top scored while player of the match Tribhuvan Sharma claimed 5/20 for Merivale Papanui.

In Division two Heathcote played Marist Harewood.  Marist Harewood batted first and made 127, Jason Smith making 50.  Daniel Nielson and John Garry both claimed 3 for Heathcote.  In reply Heathcote made light work of the chase, running down the total with 8 balls to spare.  James Rennie made 62.

Article added: Thursday 07 February 2019