Photo Credit - TACKLD

Story courtesy of College Sport Media.

For Tawa College’s girls cricketers, it is all about enjoyment and the results flow from there.

“It is all about having fun for us and having a great team culture, that is what Tawa College cricket is all about,” respective captain and vice-captain Lily Campbell and Greta Abbott told College Sport Media in unison this week.

With four current White Ferns having passed through this team, that ‘fun’ culture is undoubtedly a key ingredient to its ongoing success.

10 days ago the team retained the Cricket Wellington Cup at the four-day Twenty20 tournament played at the Petone Recreation Ground.  Tawa will now have the chance to defend their National title that they won last December by beating Christchurch Girls’ High School in the final.

They didn’t have it all their own way in the regional qualifying tournament, losing to rivals Wellington Girls’ College in round-robin play, before coming back to beat them the final.

Tawa’s Captain Lily Campbell (year 13) explained how it’s always a tough game against Wellington Girls’. “In the first game it was early on in the tournament, we were still getting settled and they outplayed us, but in the final, we went out there and believed in ourselves that we would reverse this loss.”

In that first game on Tuesday, Tawa batted first and were restricted to 102 for 8 and Wellington Girls’ chased that down in 18 overs to finish on 106 for 1, with top order batters Nell Laracy McCrystal scoring 43 and Ruby Davis finishing unbeaten on 32.

The final was also low scoring, Tawa batting first again and scoring 108 for 9, but this time restricting their oppostion.

“It was only a few more runs than we had scored in the first game against them, but we just said that we wanted to go out and back ourselves. We know we are a good bowling attack and everyone trusted each other,” said Lily.

Tawa got on top early with two early wickets, and Wellington Girls’ couldn’t recover.

Vice-captain Greta Abbott (year 12) was the tournament MVP, flashing her blade to score a combined total of 282 runs off 229 balls, with a top score of 70.

Said Greta: “It hadn’t been going too well for me all season batting-wise, but it just all came together during that tournament, and it was just how I approached it but not putting so much pressure on myself and just wanting to do really well for the team.”

Greta explained that she has always seen herself as a medium paced bowler that bats when she plays for her club team, so it was extra good to contribute with the bat for her school team.

Greta plays club cricket for North City, who recently won the Cricket Wellington Senior Women’s title, beating Petone-Riverside by 7 wickets in the 40-over final. Batting at six, she wasn’t required to bat, but Tawa College teammate and opening bowler Mia Malherbe played a notable contribution by taking 3 for 15 off 7 overs.

The format of the tournament was Twenty20, and after the first round of games were abandoned due to inclement weather, the next six went ahead, and then the final.

Tawa College’s results from games played were: beat Onslow College by 57 runs; lost to WGC by 9 wickets; beat Hutt Valley High School by 69 runs; beat Scots College by 94 runs; beat St Oran’s by 207 runs; beat WGC by 20 runs (final).

Tawa and Wellinton Girls’ were finalists in 2021, 2022, 2024 and 2025. Wellington Girls’ and Scots College were the 2023 finalists, with Wellington Girls’ winning and competing at Nationals that year.  Tawa also qualified in 2021 with a win over Hutt Valley High School, but the national tournament was cancelled due to COVID restrictions.

On Thursday this week Tawa College were back in action in the final of the weekly CSW competition, playing for the Trish McKelvey Cup, but were unable to finish on a high in the decider to Scots College.

Scots College posted 134 for 7 and Tawa fell cheaply, with Scots bowler Nandana Ramachandran taking 4 for 5 off 2.5 overs.

The cricket season is over, but many of Tawa’s players will stay busy over the winter playing other sports.

Greta and others plays indoor cricket, while Baylee Meroiti is a leading Senior A netballer and several cricket players play football for the school.

Yvanni Gibson has recently been selected in the New Zealand U23 Women’s Softball team for their campaign in July.

Yanni’s batting skills came in handy as a valuable run scorer in last week’s CSW tournament, including scoring 37 off 36 against HVHS and then an ultimate match-winning knock off 38 off 22 in the tightly contested final against WGC.

The cricket team now has their Nationals title defence to look forward to at the end of the year. Win or lose that, the good news is that the team has several younger players who will be around for the following one to two years, as well as a new crop of young players coming through to maintain the team’s mantra of having fun and with a clear pathway all the way to the Wellington Blaze and the White Ferns as shown by former students.

The Tawa College team that won the Cricket Wellington Tournament Cup:

Lily Campbell (Captain)

Greta Abbott (Vice-captain)

Mia Malherbe

Puti Smith

Tessa Campbell

Bella Roberts

Grace Dick

Baylee Meroiti

Yvanni Gibson

Jensen Gibson

Manudi Tirasha Sathnadi Sellahewa

Milan Govind

Indi Edmonds-Tupaea
 

Coaches: Nathan Roberts and Jay Plant.

Manager: Sarah Campbell

Article added: Monday 07 April 2025