St Peter’s College recently hosted three schools for the annual Neil Dansie Cricket Festival. After two years of postponement due to COVID-19, it was fantastic to have our old friends from Toowoomba Grammar School and St Kevin’s College, along with new entrants to the tournament, Cranbrook School, visit Saints for a week of cricket.
Saints lined up against St Kevin’s College on day 1, with St Kevin’s posting a competitive 3/209 from their 50 overs. Ultimately, Saints fell short by 21 runs with Noah Latimer scoring 40.
Day 2 began with a visit from Neil Dansie, who brought entertainment and shared his wisdom with the teams. At 94, Neil is still full of energy and passion for cricket and was an inspiration to everyone fortunate enough to hear him speak.
Saints got off to a horrible start, losing the first four wickets for 10 runs against an aggressive Toowoomba Grammar opening spell. From here, debutant Felix Polasek (35 runs) partnered with captain James Hattingh (64 runs) to resurrect the Saints innings and get us to a competitive enough 164. Polasek (3/18) along with Aadi Mittal and Jim Kelly led the way with the ball, and our strong bowling and fielding performance limited Toowoomba Grammar School to 129. This was an incredible victory, given our start to the match.
The team’s momentum continued to build on Day 3, with our bowling and fielding efforts restricting Cranbrook to 114. Adam Freeman and Aadi Mittal brought the heat with the new ball, capturing three wickets each. This was chased down nicely by our top order, with Noah Latimer leading the way scoring an unbeaten 57.
This win got us into the final against St Kevin’s, who were undefeated for the tournament so far. After a strong start with the bat from our opposition, our bowling and fielding brought back some pressure to have the match evenly poised halfway through the first innings. Noah Latimer led the way with the ball, taking 3/16 from his 8.1 overs. The St Kevin’s player of the tournament took the game away from us a bit in the second half of their innings, scoring a brilliant 78 to help them to 214. Jim Kelly (50) and Noah Latimer (62) gave us some excellent momentum at the start of the innings, but we were unable to bring home the game, falling 27 runs short.
Overall, our team can be proud of their efforts this week against some quality opposition. Four days of cricket in testing conditions created a fantastic environment for all players to learn more about their cricket and importantly grow as young men.
Hosting a tournament is a huge team effort, and there is a significant list of individuals that have been thanked for their contributions in the lead up to and throughout the week.
Jeremy Borgas
Head of Cricket
Humanities Faculty / Mentor School & Allen House
