By Jonathan Leask  March 15 2010

Collegiate successfully defended the Muirhead Rosebowl on Saturday with a six wicket win over Tech in the senior cricket final on Saturday.

The match was reduced to a 40 over contest after the overnight rain left the area surrounding the pitch to damp.

 There was a reasonable and rather vocal crowd on hand to watch the limited overs final that included a Tech mascot in a shark suit.

The match got underway at 1.45 with Collegiate winning the toss and putting Tech into bat.

Tech got of to a conservative start with Jason Morrison and Matt Hurley pushing singles to rotate the strike with boundaries hard to come by on a slow outfield.

After a solid opening stand of 32 Morrison chased a wide delivery from Bevan Ravenscroft and Bo Houston took the catch at second slip.

Hurley started to hit over the infield and found the boundary but went for one too many getting bowled for 27.

Collegiate soon had a third as Morgan Gallagher was trapped lbw to give Bevan Richan (2/29) his second wicket.

Dan Thomas and Dan Hurley then consolidated the innings through until drinks but after the break the wheels came off.

With Tech on 94/3 Collegiate claimed three wickets in four balls to swing the match very much in its favour before taking a fourth wicket to leave Tech in serious trouble at 95/7.

The first of the wickets saw Thomas advance down the pitch but he played and missed and some sharp work from wicket keeper Cawte Whiting had Thomas heading back to the pavilion for 19.

The first ball of the next over saw Dan Hurley sky one over point but Richard Fridd made good ground to take a tricky catch in the deep. Hurley was on 18 after an innings that mixed defence and aggressive shots which saw the ball fall short of fielders in the deep on numerous occasions.

Net to the crease was Paul Morrison who negotiated his first ball from Wayne McDowell but not his second. His attempted block saw the ball roll towards his stumps and in trying to avoid playing on he hit his stumps.

The collapse only got worse when Aaron Gutsell was run out by Simon Murison to have tech 95/7.

Tech committed the cardinal sin of not batting out its overs when its final wickets fell after 36.5 overs after a brief flurry from brothers Will and Andrew Veint got the score through to 114. A total that Tech was disappointed with but was the result of some tight bowling by Collegiate and some poor shot selection. McDowell finished the innings with 4/14 from 7.5 overs with Ravenscroft and Richan taking two each.

Collegiate would have been over the moon to dismiss Tech for such a low total but knew it still had the task of chasing it down. Tech on the other knew they needed to take 10 wickets to win the final.

The chase got off to a dramatic start with a drop catch in the opening over but tech got the early breakthrough it was after with Hurley coming around the wicket to remove Ravenscroft.

It was nearly two wickets with a catch falling agonisingly short of a despairing Morgan Gallagher in the slips. The fielder taking it cleanly but in true spirit of the game called it a bump ball.

After the close call, Bevan Richan and Elliott Jones then combined with some patient batting under a lot of pressure form an aggressive bowling attack. The pair guided Collegiate though until drinks edging towards the modest target.

After drinks Jones and Richan continued to tick the scoreboard over and put on an 81 run partnership before Tech claimed its second wicket with the Veint brothers combining to remove Jones for 41, with Will doing the bowling and Andrew the catching.

Will Veint (struck again snaring a valuable wicket of Simon Murison and his brother Andrew bowled Bo Houston to make the match more interesting.

But it was the steady bat of Richan that proved the deciding factor as he and Whiting saw Collegiate over the line to retain the Muirhead Rosebowl trophy for another season. Richan's unbeaten 54 was a mix a power and placement as he anchored the successful chase.

For Tech it was more disappointment having lost the Pritchard Shield to Allenton in what was essentially a playoff.

The Collegiate side simply outplayed its opponents with an accurate bowling display that punished loose shot making. Collegiate then backed that up with a disciplined batting performance to claim an all round six wicket win.