The Burnside Boys 1st XI team (made up of mainly North West Cricket Club players) play in the Secondary School Boys' 1st XI Cup Preliminary Tournament each year, to try and qualify each year for the main draw of this competition.

On 11-12 February, our boys turned up to play in this round-robin tournament of 20/20 matches, at Hospital Corner, Hagley Park. Six teams were entered:

Burnside High School

Cashmere High School

Combined Hillmorton High School/ Papanui High School

Middleton Grange

Riccarton High School

St Thomas’s College

The team was:

Dylan Bennett, Shravan Bhasker, John Cowley, William Frost, Jamie Hay, Fletcher Odams, Ben Panckhurst, Simerjit Sahani, Jordan Sealey, Oliver Smith, Quinn Smith and Joshua Suzana.

Results supplied by Parent Manager, Andrew Panckhurst:

• Loss - 108/8 vs St Thomas 206-3
• Loss - 144/7 vs Cashmere 148/5 (17.1 overs)
• Win - 148/4 vs Riccarton 107
• Loss - 141/9 vs Riccarton 144/4 (18.3 overs)

Highlights included:

• Dylan Bennett - 75* not out off 56 balls vs Riccarton
• Fletcher Odams - 4 wickets for 5 runs vs Riccarton

The boys had a good time and represented the school well. The three losses all really came down to excellent batting innings from one or two opposition players.

Special thanks to Parent Manager, Andrew Panckhurst, over the two day tournament, and thanks to Mike Dunlop, for all his work organising for the North West Cricket Club.