Birkenhead City Cricket Club is the proud home of nine senior men’s cricket teams. We have teams playing Premiers, grade cricket, one day cricket and T20. Whether you are looking for a social team to have some fun with, something a little more serious or you are the next Kane Williamson, we have a team for you.
We also have an affiliation with Last Man Stands, which plays a modified 8 a side T20 format on Thursdays at our clubrooms.
If you are interested in joining the Birkenhead family, please get in touch with the club manager at office@birkenheadcricket.co.nz. Whether you have just left school or are getting on in years, have played for the last decade or never before, are a native Aucklander, or grew up in Bangalore, we’re sure to find the right team for you and get you out there playing cricket.
Premiers
PREMIER REPORT
The Winter trainings at the Massey University indoor nets were disrupted by Covid-19, meaning that we had to manage smaller groups attending, however this worked extremely well. Oneash did a very good job here, putting together the groups during this time and manage the training bubbles.
We arranged two pre-season practice matches which gave everyone an opportunity to further prepare for the season ahead. As a group we moved to our outdoor nets, with good numbers attending Tuesdays and Thursdays.
The season started with three 2 day matches, followed by T20, then the One day series, and closed off with 2 Day cricket, so players had to adjust quickly to the three formats. I felt they all adjusted well, with a number of outstanding individual performances, in all formats.
As a team, showed they could compete with any opposition, so this will stand them in good stead for the 2021/22 season.
I would like to congratulate Akash Christian for the way he captained the Premier side throughout the season, Paul Rainey for his commitment at all trainings, coordinating the nets, Bron Heslop from the Navy for her commitment and loyalty for putting all players through fitness sessions and Barry & Betty Judd for their support every game day, thank you. Dilan our scorer once again did a great job coping well when being constantly asked for regular score updates whilst try to score the games.
A huge thanks to Renay Meadows for taking over the captaincy of the Senior Mens 3 rd Grade team, well done to you and all the players who played in your team. Some good signs emerged towards the end of the season which is encouraging moving forward, as the Club will have a Reserve team next season so it’s time for all of us to step up and show that BCCC is a dominant force in Auckland Cricket.
Finally the huge disappointment that the Richard Jones Semi Final was abandoned by Auckland Cricket. The players who played a part in that series, deserved a semi-final against Papatoetoe and I was confident that we would have beaten them, then on to beat Eden Roskill in the final. To Andrew Gale our Chairman, thanks for all your efforts to have the Semi Final played.
To the Board, and all those who assist in the running of BCCC, well done.
Here are the Highlights:
2-day Premier- R5 v Ellerslie – Tejas Gemlawala batted for 2 sessions plus showing a
disciplined display of batsmanship scoring 98 off 236 Balls – time in the middle gets results. Well done Tejas.
R6 v ECB – A much needed partnership was needed, so Simon Rajwer 51 and Akash put on 75, before Akash took control with a majestic 117, then wrapped up the day with outstanding bowling taking 6/26 off 10 overs.
R7 v Waitakere – Mayur Masand and Angus Frew took control with the ball, to bowl Waitakere out for 168 with Mayur taking 5/61 and Angus 4/46, then with the bat Mayur showed his skills with a controlled 61 off 38 balls to take his Batting Total in 2 Day to 372 Runs for the season.
After a short time out of the reserve grade, BCCC will have a reserve side in the 2021/2022 season.
Two Day Cricket
Two Day Cricket is played among the more serious teams entered into various grades in the Auckland Cricket competition.
Season playing dates are here (click on the full season calendar for the detail for your grade). As well as the Premier sides, we have three teams playing one and two day cricket this season, the B1s, B3s and the C1s.
3rd Grade
3rd GRADE REPORT
First of all, I would like to thank the BCCC cricket club for everything they have done during a season that has been a roll coaster through this pandemic, it has been an amazing effort from everyone involved in the club, to get us back on the park every weekend. I would like to make a special thank you to the Senior management and coaching staff for all their input to keep Birkenhead on the pitch and playing the game we all love.
The reserve season has been a journey full of positive moments and negative moments. The team started of preseason with great attendance and a great attitude to attack the season. Following on from pre-season we started of the season with a few great results and an few all-round team performances. Following this great start to the season we were hit with a few injures across the senior squad that left the reserve team disjointed and trying to get the team back to their winning way.
This would not end up happening as we had a slump prior to Christmas that would flow through the start of the new year. The squad worked hard during the end of the one-day campaign to set ourselves up for a respectable end to our two-day campaign. Following the end of the last few rounds of the season the team had dug deep and started to show a lot of promise in glimpse. This would set us up for the most exciting game of the season playing off for the wooden spoon against Waitakere.
The team got off to a rough start being bowled out for 104 and in reply our bowling unit manage to pull together and win first innings by 14 runs! We manage to win first innings and narrowly miss out on an outright. This last game was a testament to the teams constant positive attitude from start to finish of the season.
I would like to make a special mention to James Beuvink on his reserve grade hat-trick and 5-for. I would like to make a special mention to Kevin Taylor for his contribution through this season. It has been fantastic to have experience on the sideline.
Renay Meadows – Captain 3rd Grade
2020/2021 Awards went to:
Best Batsman – Kevin van Schalkwyk
Best Bowler – Hamish O’Brien
Best Player – Kevin Van Schalkwyk
Top 5 batting performers:
Name
Inns
R
50s
HS
Ave
Kevin Van Schalkwyk
16
294
1
55
18
Hamish O’ Brien
18
169
0
30
9
Abishake Peiris
15
159
1
56
11
Oneash La brooy
5
117
0
47
23
Manoj Patel
16
110
0
20
7
Top 5 bowling performers:
Name
Ov
M
R
W
SR
Ave
Econ
Hamish O’ Brien
125
15
460
24
31
19
3.67
Ahsan Chaudhary
69
2
300
18
23
17
4.35
Manoj Patel
88
13
294
16
33
18
3.33
James Beuvink
67
10
292
12
33
24
4.38
Renay Meadows
74
9
284
12
37
24
3.86
4th Grade
Dev Kunwar, 4th Grade manager
2020/2021 Awards went to:
Best Batsman – Parvesh Sethi
Best Bowler – Gaurav Sharma
Best Player – Nishant Murlidharan
Top 5 batting performers:
Name
Innings
Runs
Average
Jasmeet Singh
8
440
55
Parvesh Sethi
13
374
31
Nishant Murlidharan
15
354
27
Zahid Maqsood
14
296
23
Rohan Kundu
12
240
20
Top 5 bowling performers:
Name
Overs
Runs
Wickets
SR
Ave
Econ
Nishant Murlidharan
172
451
41
25
11
2.62
Gaurav Sharma
148
435
38
23
11
2.94
Harjinder Singh
93
325
13
43
25
3.49
Parvesh Sethi
95
251
13
44
19
2.64
Jasmeet Singh
51
144
10
31
14
2.81
6th Grade
2020/2021 Awards went to:
Best batsman – Umesh Patel
Best Bowler – Umesh Patel
Best Player – Jason McGeorge
Top 5 batting performers:
Name
Innings
50s
HS
Runs
Average
Umesh Patel
16
2
86*
360
33
Jason McGeorge
18
1
53
309
17
Hamesh Prajapati
18
0
44
256
15
Vinay Mahant
18
0
39*
241
15
Ronak Mahant
15
1
56
231
17
Top 5 bowling performers:
Name
Overs
R
W
Ave
S/R
Econ
5WI
Umesh Patel
151
486
32
15
28
3.21
1
Dylan Collins
135
611
29
21
28
4.53
0
Jason McGeorge
140
483
28
17
30
3.44
0
Javeed Ali
121
602
17
35
43
4.98
0
Paul Rainey
89
388
15
26
36
4.36
0
Javeed Ali – Captain
7th Grade Gold
7th Grade are captained by Shaf Asif. They play one-day and two-day cricket. If you’d like to play for this team email shaf.asif9@gmail.com
If you are interested in playing one-day cricket, please contact senior convenor Damian Hagoort on 021 065 6460 or email office@birkenheadcricket.co.nz
There are all sorts of levels available from serious to social.
Our clubrooms are a family-friendly environments wives, girlfriends and kids are more than welcome there and on the sidelines at games.
Auckland cricket runs a T20 competition on Saturdays and Sundays. If you are interested in entering a team the games start around the last weekend in October, so please contact Juan Le Maitre on 027 344 9775 or email office@birkenheadcricket.co.nz but please note that teams need to be registered in mid to late August.
Birkenhead Cricket also hosts the Last Man Stands T20 from the Last Man Stands North Shore competition every Thursday night. Please contact Kevin on 027 511 8877.
