2024 was a successful season for both the Boys and Girls Cricket teams at Burnside High.

First XI Boys

Starting in 2024, cricket at BHS has been gaining momentum. This continued in 2025 with the 1st XI boys playing more fixtures and earning better results which culminated in them making the last 8 of the Gillette Cup for the first time in over a decade.

For many years BHS has failed to make it out of the preliminary stages of the Gillette cup, but with some fantastic performances and a great run rate, we placed 2nd in the preliminary tournament. This  meant we went through to play the top Canterbury Country school to try and make the last eight.

Before this though, BHS played Cashmere High in a friendly warm-up match. The game was meant to be played at Edgar McIntosh Park, but was moved to Burnside Park due to a wet pitch. It was close, high scoring loss to a good Cashmere team, but the performance gave the boys confidence moving into the do or die game vs Rangiora High.

Losing the toss, Rangiora sent us into bat.  The team eeked out a hard fought 199 in 49.1 overs.  This was an excellent score on a soft pitch against some outstanding bowling from the Rangiora High team. Our players showed great patience and when there was an opportunity to get the ball away our boys took full advantage with the bulk of the scoring coming from boundaries.  Top scorers with the bat were:

• Ollie Fifield 22;

• Jordan Sim 28; 

• Thomas Vesty 44.

Our innings with the ball had the perfect start, a wicket off the first ball from a great catch from Bosilu Liyana Waduge at short cover.  The opening bowling partnership of Thomas Vesty and Alex Guillemot had the Rangiora High top order hopping. Wickets were falling quickly and the team had Rangiora High 4-20 and then 6-60, with Jordan Sim and Alfie Bell getting in on the act. The middle order batsmen from Rangiora High put together two solid partnerships that put the pressure back on us. Some strategic bowling changes from our captain Ben Hooker and an excellent debut spell from Dilshan Soysa got the desired results, and we ended up winning the match by 42 runs in the 43 over. 

• Thomas Vesty 3 wickets - 20 runs - 8 overs

• Alfie Bell 2 wickets - 25 runs - 7 overs  

• Dilshan Soysa 3 wickets -15 runs - 5 overs

• Alex Guillemot 1 wicket - 21 runs - 9 overs

• Jordan Sim 1 wicket - 43 runs - 10 overs

These wickets takers will be thanking the tight effort in the field with seven of the ten wickets coming from catches:

• Jordan Sim 2

• Alfie Bell 2

• Yatharth Sharma 1

• Bosilu Liyana Waduge 2
  

As the last qualifier, BHS drew CBHS as their opponents in the quarter final. After an initial rained out match in March, we played them again in mid October. Playing at CBHS no1 pitch, BHS bowled first and at one stage had CBHS on the ropes at 35/3, but some classy batting from Boy’s high eventuated and they ended up posting over 250. In the end this was too much for our boys and we were bowled out cheaply, but we can take pride in bowling well, but more importantly, making the quarterfinals after a long absence.

Boys 1st XI:

Alfie Bell, Ollie Fifield, Alex Guillemot, Ben Hooker, Bosilu Liyana Waduge, Felix Nielsen, Yatharth Sharma, Jordan Sim, Aditya Tiwary, Olly Upjohn, Thomas Vesty, Brayden Morrison (Tournament Squad), Tate Southgate (Tournament Squad) and Finlay Tressler (Tournament Squad).

Girls 1st XI

BHS played in the Gillette Venus Cup earlier in the year and the team had a blast of a time. Whilst we didn’t progress to the semis of the tournament, there were some good team performances and efforts throughout the 3 day tournament in March.

The team got together again to play against Cashmere on the same day as the boys on Edgar McIntosh no2 ground. It was a fantastic, close 2/20 match. BHS just got up by snaring 2 wickets in the last 2 balls of the game! 

Girls 1st XI:

Grace Darnbrough, Courtnee Capon, Vioelt Creighton, Makayla Capon, Niyati Gupta, Tilly Friend, Xenia Prinz, Phoebe Slade, Michaela Yoon, Sophie Lambie and Shimeka Sinha.

Juniors

On 5th December BHS hosted a junior Cashmere High team for the first time in many years. The 40 over game took place on our resurrected No1 pitch here at BHS. It was a great effort by Steve Cable, our groundsman, to get the pitch prepared for the game. 

It was a very hot day and Cashmere batted well scoring 267. Chasing, BHS put together some good partnerships, but were always struggling with the run rate and were eventually dismissed for about 160.

There are some great junior players at the school, with our Year 9’s in particular looking good for the future.

Junior Cricket XI:

Zac Chalmers (C), Oscar Colhoun, Magnus Davidson, Alexander de Bock, Muhammad Haroon, Kelly Johns, Ben Jorgenson, Ayod Perera, Rayyan Siddiqui, Alexander White and Felix Winsley.

Future

We have some great plans for the future of cricket at BHS. It has started with getting our No1 grass wicket back up and running. BHS has secured PTA funding to help put in an artificial pitch on the Greers road fields. Subject to funding and grants, we hope to be able to put in artificial practice nets on the existing site of the old ones by Pukehinau. 

We would like to acknowledge the support of NorthWest and Burnside West University Cricket Club with regards to supporting the school with our cricket plans. 

A big thanks to Rozz Guillemot, Barry McKenzie, Steve Cable, Kelvin Upjohn, Shane Young and Sean Coster for their ongoing efforts with cricket at the BHS

Callum Green

TIC Cricket