Milne Bay defeat hosts by 49 runs in cricket

Sports

TEAM Milne Bay defeated hosts West New Britain by 49 runs in the opening T20 cricket match at the Kimbe Secondary School yesterday.
Milne Bay (136) were inspired by their skipper and opening batsman Wedeca Simon who scored 21 runs while middle order batsman Philip Samuel (28) in their victory.
West New Britain, appearing in cricket for the third time at the PNG Games, managed 87 runs in the chase.
Milne Bay coach Simon Deiwillie described their victory as fantastic but reminded his boys of the tougher challenges ahead of them especially against defending champions NCD who were on bye yesterday.
“It’s fantastic, the boys did very well. We had short time for the boys to bond but we did our best to form a good culture amongst us here in Kimbe,” Deiwillie said.
“We apply our game plans how we trained at home and we did very well.
“Wedeca Simon is one of our experienced players because he has played in the last two PNG Games so we decided for him to lead the boys and he did well.
“For Philip Samuel, this is his first PNG Games but in the days ahead we have bigger opponents, NCD would be our threat and even Madang.
“We did well against Kimbe maybe because cricket is not really well known here but they did well against us,” Deiwillie said.
“Cricket started yesterday with only five teams confirmed which are Milne Bay, West New Britain, Madang and Southern Highlands while National Capital District were on a bye.
Cricket technical official and former PNG Barramundi Rarua Dikana confirmed that Morobe, Central and Oro did not arrive in Kimbe so they have improvised their draws and have only five teams taking part in the code.
Team Central sports cCoordinator Henry Kavana confirmed that team Central would not take part in cricket despite the fact that it is one of the leading cricket provinces in the country apart from NCD and Morobe.
In other results Madang won the toss and decided to take the bat first against Southern Highlands and defeated the newcomers by 56 runs.
Results: Milne Bay 10/136 defeated West New Britain 10/87 by 49 runs. Madang 10/96 defeated Southern Highlands 10/40 by 56 runs.