Chris McGeown farewelled in style

Cook Islands Cricket paid tribute to staunch cricket supporter and departing Edgewater Resort and Spa CEO Chris McGeown on Wednesday afternoon with a surprise benefit match.

Sixteen of McGeown’s friends secretly assembled to surprise him with a fun eight-a-side match with a twist – as the Wale boys from Pukapuka substituted the English bats with Pukapukan kirikiti bats.

Cricket chief executive officer Alister Stevic said the match was a fun opportunity to farewell a friend of Cook Islands Cricket.

”Benefit matches are reserved for very special occasions and ensuring we farewelled Chris in style was certainly worthy of holding the countries first benefit cricket match. Chris and his team at Edgewater have been very proactive supporters of cricket and under the partnership we have seen women’s cricket grow from strength to strength, to the point we boast the highest number of women’s players in the region and our national team appeared in their very first international tournament.“

Unfortunately for McGeown – his side was not the winner on the day as the opposition side led by Justin Rous and Hamish Weir won the match by three runs, but not before the man of the moment posted the only 50 of the match and backed it up with four wickets and a superb run out.