Kai Steele heads towards the boundary after scoring 100 runs against Bookham on Saturday. He led the Hornets to a great win in the Grand Final.
Steele Scores Ton For Hornets. The local Senior Cricket season came to its conclusion climaxing in a thrilling finish. HARDEN HORNETS travelled to the neutral ground at Bowning to take on the BOOKHAM BULLS. The weather was a magnificent sunny afternoon, ideal for cricket. Dressed resplendently in their uniform displaying the Hornet design our Skipper Kai Steele’s call of heads was successful resulting in Harden batting first. Kai, along with his usual partner Paul Potts advanced out onto the oval to begin the innings. Kai was the aggressor, with Pottsy his rock, holding the partnership together. After the half-way mark of 20 overs they had 71 runs on the board for the loss of 0 wickets. Soon after the drinks break, Paul Potts was trapped LBW (plumb in front) with Harden’s score on 88, and Potts out for 13 dour runs to Roy Robinson. Jeff Brown then marched out to enter the fray. At this stage Steele poked a single and raised his bat to register his half century.
Karen and Kai after Kai’s century at Bookham on Saturday. For months now Kai Steele has been heaping praise upon the younger players in the Harden Hornets side. The Hornets certainly do have some very good younger players coming through. Steele knows that he isn’t the future of Harden cricket and at 37 is not what you would call a spring chicken, however, you can’t teach experience it must be learnt. Steele has plenty of experience. Steele injured his groin against Binalong in a game of touch football a few weeks ago and it was bad enough that he couldn’t continue after just a minute into the game. He said, “I normally do hamstrings not groins so it was new for me. I was gone, I didn’t know how bad it was but I had a big game against Binalong to keep the Hornets in contention in the B Grade finals series. “I was on one leg batting and running with a peg leg, I couldn’t move my feet much.” Steele admitted that he reverted back to using tennis style shots to add to Harden’s score. Unfortunately, Harden fell short and were relegated to C Grade. Steele said, “I was lucky that we had two weeks off and I went to the Chiropractor and the Physio to see if I could get it right.”
He was severely hampered in the following weeks. He went into the Grand Final not knowing whether he would even be able to run but he knew he could play with the pain. He had been there and done that before. By the 3rd week it was better but he hadn’t trained at all. He said, “If I had gone to training I would have done something silly and injured it again. I hadn’t done any running. The main concern was whether I could run or not. It just happened to be that I took my first run. The whole innings I was OK.”
Steele’s hand eye coordination is fine and is evident in his tennis where he is well known as the best mens player in town, although he doesn’t have much time to play these days. It was a warm day and Steele thought his second 50 was slower than his first but it was quicker. With a few overs left he hit triple figures and retired sending his younger charges in to the fray. “I didn’t have anymore in me and I was stoked with the hundred.” It is rare these days to get a ton in local cricket the last Harden man to do so was Nathan Schofield.
At 37 Kai’s first hundred will be something he can share with his children. “Kaz doesn’t come to watch cricket she isn’t really a fan. It could have been 10 years since she last watched a match. I ruined her day. She was planning to go shopping in Canberra for Easter presents after I got out but I batted for 150 minutes to bring up the 50 before drinks.”
The highlight of the day was returning to the club which was hosting Australian Cricket legend Doug Walters. Kai said, “Doug came up to me at the club and congratulated me, I think the boys had let him know I scored a hundred. He said ‘Congratulations son’ Kai said, “It was a C Grade hundred.” Doug replied with, “Any hundred is a good hundred, don’t let anyone take it away from you hundreds are hard to get.” Kai said “Being Captain I wanted to retire and give the other boys a bat after I got the job done.” The town is proud of you Kai for leading this young side around and being an excellent example to the younger cricketers.
