Christchurch Boys’ High School defend National Junior cricket title

Once more, Christchurch Boys’ High School can lay claim to being the best cricketing school in the country heading into the winter sports season.

Following on from the success of their First XI that won their third straight National Gillette Cup title in December, CBHS’s Colts team has defended its NZCT Junior Secondary School Boys title at last week’s national tournament in Palmerston North.

Playing a round-robin series of 40 over matches, the CBHS team, comprising Year 10 players, won all five fixtures. The other schools at the tournament were Wellington College, who finished second, King’s College (Auckland), Tauranga Boys’ High School, Palmerston North Boys’ High School and King’s High School (Dunedin).

CHBS team manager Rob Smith said the school’s fifth win in this tournament was a genuine team effort, with several players contributing and supporting each other at different times.

Smith made mention of two players, captain Louie Chapman and the team’s Most Valuable Player from the tournament Cullen Moody.

“Our captain Louie Chapman got a hat-trick [bowling off-spin] and scored 93 on day one against Tauranga Boys’ High School, which was pretty special and it set up our week.”

“Our Most Valuable Player was middle order batsman and first change bowler Cullen Moody, who was consistent all week.”

Other standout individual performances included Tom Bell making 75 against Tauranga, Jayden Ball making 70 and bowler Tim Boyle taking 5 for 11 against King’s High School, Mitchell Hay making 62 and Chapman taking 4 for 6 against King’s College.

Collectively, CBHS’s bowling unit was devastating all week. In their first four games they bowled Tauranga out for 68, King’s High School out for 43, King’s College out for 70 and Palmerston North out for 75 – taking one wicket for every 6.4 runs scored against them.

Their fifth match against Wellington College was the toughest, CBHS restricted to 177 for 9, before holding the opposition to 166 for 8, winning by 9 runs.

“In a tournament like this, it’s good to start well, so we did target that first game against Tauranga and we won well to set up the week,” said Smith.

“The importance of our fourth match against Palmerston North game was that we were aware that there was rain forecast later in the afternoon so to bowl them out for 75 and knock the runs off quickly was pleasing.

“We treated the last game against Wellington College as a final; we set ourselves to win that to win the championship. We were already ahead of them on net run rate, but we didn’t want to get into a situation where we lost the game but still won the tournament.”

Two of the school’s former old boys, Corey Anderson and Tom Latham, were in the BLACKCAPS squad that reached the final of the Cricket World Squad on Sunday.

“All our players are aware that those two players have come through Boys’ High, they ask questions about what were they like at school and how they performed at these tournaments.

It gives them a bit of motivation that if they work hard they can achieve what Corey and Tom have done.”

The Christchurch Boys’ High School team that won the NZCT tournament was:

Brelyn Little

Cullen Moody

George Cooke

Gus Mowat

Jackson Pauling

Jayden Ball

Liam Foulkes

Louie Chapman (Captain)

Mitch Hay

Tim Boyle

Tom Bell

Will Smith



Coaches: Phil Watson and Richard Taylor

Manager: Rob Smith

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