The Pink Report

Bounty For Boulty

As Trent Boult sat back reflecting in the changing rooms at Cobham Oval after the opening day of the 2011/12 season, he thought to himself that it couldn’t have got off to a better start. Trent’s 5-48 - he got McIntosh, Cachopa, de Grandhomme, Bruce Martin and Andre Adams - was the first five-wicket bag of the summer and a satisfying return for the team that had won the toss and put the Aces into bat.

Twenty-four hours later, he sat in the same spot in the sheds wondering if he’d ever experience a more chaotic day of cricket in his life.

Never before in Trent's entire cricketing experience had he bowled twice and batted twice in a single day - a rare event for the world of first-class cricket. The team had knocked off the last Auckland wicket in the morning, been all out for 136 after lunch, destroyed the Auckland second innings inside 50 overs that afternoon (Trent added another three wickets to his collection to make it eight for the match), and then sent Trent out as nightwatchman that evening to open the batting with Brad Wilson.

The game was flying at such a chaotic pace that just watching it as a spectator was enervating - and with no Radio Sport commentator to fill the rest of us in, there were assumptions round the country that it must have been a dodgy strip. Not so, however.

“It was a good wicket once you got in, although not many got in on it,” Trent says. “It was a pretty hard wicket to get someone out on - it certainly wasn’t overly bowler-friendly, which people might think if they just read the scoreboard. This is always a good time of year to bowl with the greener wickets, but the swing wasn’t dramatic, and it didn’t seam consistently through the day - it just kind of came through every now and then.

"So I thought it was a decent wicket. It was just one of those games you never would have guessed would have played out like that - especially that second day. You could use the excuse that it was just blowing the cobwebs off at the start of the season, but I still really don’t know how to explain both teams falling in a heap like that. It was a pretty rare game. I don’t know how many more of those we’ll see this season.”

Trent’s tidy five-for was his fourth in first-class cricket, and his second against the Aces after he ripped through them at Colin Maiden Park last season to take his best figures of 5-35, which was a nine-wicket victory for the Knights. But this time around he was on that dreaded emotional rollercoaster - in that weird place where you should be pleased with your own performance, but the crazy 19-run loss with a day to spare is taking the gloss right off.

I reckon there’s something weird in the air around Aces-Knights matches at the best of times. These two teams have got history, nothing ever rolls smoothly. There was that nine-wicket turn-up away last season and, the summer before at that same park, a dramatic HRV Cup game the Knights would rather forget. Really, games between provincial neighbours should be banned. (Just kidding.)

So what does the team go through after a loss like that? And how do they go about an effective debrief, once the shellshock’s worn off?

“We sit down as a team and review what happened, and openly review each other individually as well, which is good. Obviously from a team perspective it was very disappointing not to get over the line chasing 260 on day three for an outright win. In the past, it didn’t seem to be too hard. So we’re going to review that and take the good things out of it, but yeah: frustrating.

“The guys got to disperse a bit earlier than planned obviously, got to get away home and see their families, but we meet back up today, take the positives out of the last week, put it behind us and move on.

"It’s as simple as that. I’ve definitely put it behind me already. I’ll remember I had a satisfying start and hopefully I can continue that form. Other players might hang onto it a bit longer depending on what happened to them and selections, but I don’t think many of us dwell. There’s a lot of cricket to be played and there are more opportunities coming up. You’ve got to look forward, in my opinion.”

Which is what Trent spent last summer doing as he eased his way back from the sort of back injury that gives pace bowlers, well, shivers up their spine. Never one to hold back on the park, he had to adjust to bowling limited spells under managed workloads as he strengthened and recovered. Now that’s behind him, but he can empathise with Tim Southee at the moment, for whom the match represented his first comeback since his knee injury.

“It’s always frustrating coming back from injury and being on managed loads, but you’re keeping the long-term goal in mind. Blasting straight back into it, bowling over after over at 100 per cent, just isn’t going to work. I went through it and it’s a slow road back, but you’ve just got to swallow the frustration for the long-term good.

“But just having Timmy with us was good, having that experience in the camp and in the bowling unit. I guess it was a bit different for us not to have ‘G’ (Graeme Aldridge, returning next game after the Blackcaps tour) leading the attack, but I think ‘BA’ (Arnel) easily slipped into that role. I didn’t really change much, personally - I’ve always been quite aggressive and a short-style bowler, so it was business as usual for me.”

At 22 Trent’s already a veteran of New Zealand A tours and relished getting out of the indoor nets during winter and out into the sunshine at the Emerging Players tournament in Queensland - just the ticket to good personal preparation for the season. He knew the standard of cricket was going to be high and launched into it fully fit, fresh and unfettered.

“It’s been a good winter conditioning-wise, productive, and hopefully it’s put me in good stead for the season. I trained hard over winter, and spent a little bit of time in Christchurch as well with the fast bowlers’ group and a couple of Blackcaps camps. So it’s all just tapered up and increased from there, and now it’s full on - right into it.”

This coming week all six first-class sides converge on Canterbury, with two matches being played simultaneously at Lincoln, the other at Rangiora, for what will feel like a Plunket Shield tournament.

“It’s going to be interesting, the next round, with all the teams there,” Trent says. “The round after, there’s going to be still a couple of teams down there playing at Lincoln, as well.

"It will bring back the memories of the old under-19 camps and everyone together! Everyone’s put up in hostels at the Uni there so it could be an eye-opener. There are not a lot of distractions out in the country really, but I’ve done it before so I think I know what I’m in for. And I’m looking forward to it. I’m just looking forward to being on the park and taking more wickets.”

Almost a six-for: this one just failed to carry as Trent Boult shone on day one.

*image courtesy of Margot Butcher