Article Courtesy of Counties Manukau Cricket

The CMCA Men's team has won the Spray Marks NZ Fergus Hickey Rosebowl (Northern District's two-day) after their match against Northland in Whangarei was completely washed out at the weekend.

CMCA holds the title for only the second time in its history. The last win came before GST was introduced, CMCA was then known as the Franklin and Districts Cricket Assn.

Just like the current crop, the 1974/75 team, led by Dave Hunt, went through the season unbeaten.

"Although it's disappointing that we didn't get to play our last Fergus Hickey match it feels great to be part of an unbeaten team that now has the Fergus Hickey Rosebowl and the Hawke Cup", said present day Counties-Manukau pace bowler, Michael Schofield of Karaka.

CMCA was awarded four points for the washed-out match which meant they headed off Hamilton by a point. Although the points were sufficient to win the championship they look miserable compared to the nine championship points per match that the team was averaging going into the last round.

With one more week of representative cricket left, and the possibility of another trophy, CMCA Head Coach, Adil Somani, has already achieved the best-ever year in the association's seventy-year history of senior representative cricket.

There are several personal backstories to the successful campaign. One of the most alluring is Richie Faust's effort to become the prodigal son after an eight year interval. The 32-year old Papakura batsman, who debuted for Counties-Manukau in 2002, has twice been included in the 2018 side but on both occasions the match has been a wash-out.

Meanwhile, Waikato Valley were victorious over Bay of Plenty in their match by 38 runs at the Tauranga Domain.