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From The CEO’s Chair

Newsletter from Chris Rapson Bay of Plenty Cricket Chief Executive

Is has been an extremely busy time at Bay Of Plenty Cricket since the Christmas holiday break. First up, we had sell-out crowds at the two Black Caps verses Bangladesh T20 Internationals in early January 2017. The successful hosting of the two international games, has further cemented the Bay Oval as a premier One-Day and T20 International venue in the country. The addition of lights, in what we hope is the near future will be the icing on the cake.

International cricket returns to the Bay Oval in early March, with the White Ferns and Australia Women playing the last two legs of the 2017 One-Day series, for the trophy simple known as "The Rosebowl". Outstanding news from the T20 series over the Tasman with our own Anna Peterson, who learnt the game in the Bay, grabbing a hat trick.

The Bay of Plenty Senior Men's team have been simply magnificent in their first two defences of the Hawke Cup at the Bay Oval. The Bay boys blasted Counties Manukau out of the first Direct Challenge, equalling their all-time highest score of 701. While the Hawkes Bay game was on a knife edge on day one, the Bay team exerted authority on the last two days to easily repel the Hawkes Bay challenge. 

Welcome and congratulations to our visiting Yorkshire County player Alex Lees, who broke the Bay of Plenty all-time highest score with 223 against Counties, then backed it up with 141 in the Hawkes Bay encounter. Congrats are also extended to Donovan Deeble and Sean Davey who both posted tons in the Hawke Cup games. To add to the excitement, skipper Peter Drysdale and Sean Davey both sailed past the century mark in the Fergus Hickey match with Hamilton, which was sandwiched between the two Hawke Cup games.

This weekend Bay of Plenty Cricket are hosting our third Hawke Cup Direct Challenge of the 2017 season against Nelson. Let's get along to the Bay Oval this Friday, Saturday and Sunday to give our boys our full support to retain the NZ Cricket prize.

Decisions made at the BOPCA Board table set the scene for success on and off the field. The Bay of Plenty Cricket Board currently have a vacancy for a Director on the Board and are looking for someone to represent the interests and diversity of the game in our region and to give further focus to the part played by girls and women’s cricket in the Bay. 

Our BOPCA Girls Development Officer Rebecca Yee is doing an outstanding job with the development of the girl’s game in our region. Rebecca is delivering the GoGirl program in primary schools and the term one program will culminate with the Rainbow World Cup during March at the Bay Oval. No better example is needed of the advance of girl’s cricket than Tauranga Girls’ College; with a part-time tournament team in the past to four team’s playing junior cricket in term one. We would certainly welcome anyone that is interested in assisting Rebecca in her promotion of the girl’s game.

Bay of Plenty Cricket has taken recently taken steps to grow the junior game in Rotorua and the Eastern Bay of Plenty. We have employed Brent Jones part-time for the remainder of the season to support and develop junior cricket in the two regions.

While we are very pleased with the interest and number of hits on the BOPCA website, Bay of Plenty Cricket are currently looking to upgrade the website with more information and to make it more user-friendly. Speaking of websites, Bay Cricket encourages all players and administrators to register their details on CricHQ. If you or your club need guidance on this simply phone into the office.

Our sponsors and funding supporters are a very important part of the Bay of Plenty Cricket family and we would like to thank them for their continued support.