This year the 1st XI and Junior XI travelled to Invercargill to play Southland Boys in their annual interschool games.

The games were played at Southland Boys in fine weather.

1st XI Game

Shirley Boys had to fight hard to salvage a draw in a game where they never really got ‘on top’ at any stage. A below par score in their 1st innings saw Shirley behind at the end of the first day. Southland went on to amass a huge first innings score, batting for over 90 overs and not declaring until after lunch on the 2nd day. With no chance of winning the game the Shirley batsmen had no choice but to bat out the remainder the day. However wickets were lost regularly and the Shirley middle and late order batsman had to make a fighting and determined effort to prevent a Southland win.

Shirley BHS 134/10 (Brad Prescott 38, Ekamjot Singh 36) and 148/9 (Connor McLaughlin 59, Ekamjot Singh 24) drew with Southland 318/9 (Benji Irvine 4/76, Tyler Burns 2/30, Ekamjot Singh 2/89)

Junior Game

The Junior XI made up mostly Year 9 boys were well beaten by a bigger and older Southland Boys side. At the end of the first day the game was evenly balanced but a poor morning on the 2nd day saw Southland build a 70 run lead. Then the Shirley batting faltered in the 2nd innings to leave Southland only 9 runs to win

Shirley BHS 154/10 (Nick Barry 38, Ashton Brown 25, Jack Rhodes 20) and 74/10 (jack Rhodes 24) lost to Southland Boys 220/8 (Will Davis 2/33, Thomas Anngow 2/31) by 10 wickets