NZC National Men’s Under 19 Tournament
ROUND FIVE - One-Day Final Day | 9 December 2019
Lincoln Green, Lincoln
Auckland U19 beat CD U19 by 10 wickets
FIVE FROM FIVE: Another excellent day for the Men's U19s.
— Auckland Cricket (@aucklandcricket) December 9, 2019
10 wicket win over @CDCricket.
Bevon-John Jacobs back-to-back 💯
Simon Keene continuing his stellar tournament so far.
T20s start tomorrow.
SCORECARD | https://t.co/MuyWBRrPhO pic.twitter.com/6SLdKUoEnF
Following the perfect script, this year's two undefeated sides had been scheduled to meet on the final day of the one-dayers, with classy Auckland U19 using all their experience to clinically dominate CD U19 with both bat and ball.
Auckland had come into the tournament as the defending champions, whilst CD hadn't won this age-group title in years and were relishing a rare opportunity to make a statement against their biggest rival in the tournament.
CD captain Joey Field won the toss and batted, but that was almost all that went right for CD on a tough day in the office after an otherwise excellent week's work.
Auckland quickly got CD three down for not many, leaving NZ U19 opening batsman Thomas Zohrab with a big recovery job.
Auckland was tight from the start, just a wide and single conceded from the first three overs and Muhammed Abbas and Will O'Rourke creating excellent pressure in their opening spells.
Abbas broke through first, and it was a huge wicket with yesterday's centurion Finn Raxworthy caught cheaply by Conor Ansell. Abbbas struck again in his next over, the last ball of his four-over spell removing Akhil Kumar before leggie Adithya Ashok spun into the attack from the 11th over.
Ashok has been one of the stars of this year's tournament so far with the ball and commanded respect from Zohrab and new man Will Clark, equally one of CD's most stylish batsmen.
The battle between Clark and Ashok was absorbing, but ultimately too brief for CD as Clark's big wicket was lost in the 15th, bowled for just 13.
Auckland now had a firm advantage as CD was forced onto the back foot. For the first time all week, no CD batsman reached 50, but Zohrab (43 off 68), Sebastian Lauderdale-Smith (41 off 52) and captain Field (44 off 46) fought valiantly to give their side some sort of defendable total.
CD reached 201 before the final wicket fell at the end of the 48th over, but any hope of finals footy nerves affecting their foe soon evaporated in the brutal hour after lunch.
Auckland's opening pair of Bevon Jacobs and Simon Keene took to the CD attack, clearly determined to take the one-day honours in positive, aggressive style.
Jacobs reached his second one-day century in the space of two days off just 74 balls, in 80 mins (10 x 4, 6 x 6).
Keene was in just as much a hurry, finishing unbeaten on a 68-ball 86* in their unbroken 202*-run stand that clinched a memorable 10-wicket victory for Auckland - all over in just 24.3 ballistic overs.
