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Sports correspondent & historian with |
Significant achievements often get lost among overwhelming statistics, hindering recognition of major milestones.
Bay of Plenty have recorded the highest score in Hawke Cup cricket twice.
Lord Hawke presented the Hawke Cup to the New Zealand Cricket Association in 1910 for the NZCA Minor Association competition.
Martin Bladen Hawke strode the cricketing world as a colossus for half a century as a player and an administrator and played a major part in modernising the game.
His first-class career lasted 31 years (1881-1912). As an administrator, he was president of Marylebone Cricket Club and Chairman of the England test selectors.
Hamilton presented Bay of Plenty with one of the four annual Hawke Cup Direct Challenges at Galloway Park from January 27 to January 29, 2013.
The hosts won the toss, batted first and were dismissed for 255, with current Black Cap Mitchell Santner top-scoring with 60 runs.
Few could have envisaged what would happen when Bay of Plenty resumed on day two, with 24 runs on the board without losing a wicket.
Joe Carter and Bharat Popli put on a batting masterclass by providing a 208-run second-wicket partnership.
Popli was the first to be removed, falling one short of a century, with Carter grabbing the Bay’s highest individual score of 187 runs.
Bay of Plenty were far from finished when Brett Hampton arrived at the crease. The Bay allrounder tore the Hamilton bowling attack to shreds as he hammered 194, including 24 fours and three big heaves over the Galloway Park boundary.
Carter saw his new Bay best last a fraction of a second as Hampton set a fresh figure on day three.
Bay of Plenty were finally removed for a new Hawke Cup record innings of 701.
Four years later, New Zealand Cricket history was repeated at the Bay Oval when the Bay of Plenty senior representatives hammered Counties Manukau.
Counties Manukau’s first mistake was asking Bay of Plenty to bat after the visitors won the toss.
Bay of Plenty’s current centurion, Peter Drysdale, and future England test player Alex Lees came together relatively early on the opening day of the three-day affair to simply bat Counties out of the match.
The bare bones of the encounter tell us that Bay of Plenty were removed with another 701 runs on the scoreboard.
Lees had set a new Bay record with 223 runs after 301 minutes at the crease, and Drysdale (84) had posted another big partnership of 197 runs.
Other significant contributions to the massive total came from a century from number eight batter Donovan Deeble and half-centuries by Ben Musgrave and keeper Tim Clarke.
The biggest milestone was setting a Bay Oval record innings, which sits clear of the next best, the Black Caps’ 615/9 against England in the first test at Bay Oval in November 2019.
Records are set to be broken, but with so much one-day and T20 cricket in today’s cricket world, the significant mark of 701 runs at the Mount Maunganui ground may never be eclipsed.