The Pink Report

Farewell Sweet Shield

And so the rainy rollercoaster that was the 2010/11 season ends with no trophies in the Yahoo!Xtra Northern Knights’ hands - but crikey, the final few days were packed with more intrigue than a whodunnit bestseller.

Let’s start with those desperado Stags in Napier. They knew they needed an outright to have a show of getting the Plunket Shield in their clutches - and they also knew the week’s weather forecast of showers and general wetness was against them in terms of getting in a full match with the Aces.

Inserted and interrupted by patches of bad light, ground delays due to overnight rain and yet more showers coming down over Nelson Park, the cellar-dwelling Aces shrugged it all off to record by far their highest total of the whole season, finally declaring at 471/4 after Andrew de Boorder had got his 150. Talk about saving your best for last. But by now the game was into day three, so without any jiggery-pokery the Stags weren’t going to get a result.

So the Stags declared their first innings at 5/1 after just six overs (which was just long enough for Peter Ingram to dent his season averages with a duck). That was lunch. And during lunch, Aces skipper Gareth Hopkins announced that his side couldn’t be bothered batting again. Forfeiting their second innings set the Stags a target of 467. That wouldn’t have seemed so unreasonable had there not been a full 175 overs (five sessions) left in the game, meaning the Stags’ strong batting line-up would need to chase at just 2.67 an over.

Cue allegations of collusion. Cue the intrigue. Cue the newspapers reporting that it was understood Canterbury Cricket CEO Lee Germon had already lodged a complaint. Oh, and cue lots of people recalling the 2009 match when the Knights and Aces each forfeited an innings and were investigated (and cleared). The difference was that in that match, almost three days had been lost to rain and, early in the season, they each stood to gain worthwhile points if they could still force a result. In Napier, the Aces were already out of the running, so handing the Stags a generous opportunity to claim the match isn’t such a good look.

The weather forecast for day four, at that stage, had predicted just a few late showers, so I did laugh when I woke up on Thursday morning and checked Metservice (as you do). That forecast for Napier had changed overnight to rain and hail from the morning onwards, so their cunning game was at an end. I hope Hoppy was wearing his helmet lest a large hailstone from the heavens bonked him on the head.

And so to Queenstown. Not so much intrigue there as heart-lifting wonder after Neil Wagner - unquestionably one of the standout bowlers of the summer - capped off 2011 with a rare bowling feat. No one in the history of New Zealand first-class cricket had taken five wickets in one over before and apparently (I’ve yet to consult with the official statistics boffins, but this is what I’ve heard) it’s happened only four times in the history of first-class cricket worldwide. He started with a hat-trick, progressed to a double hat-trick (four wickets in four balls), had Mark Gillespie desperately fending against his fifth ball of the over - a dot ball - and then bowled Gillespie next ball anyway. All but the first wicket were “bowleds”, which must make it even more satisfying - no room for doubt in those. Congratulations Neil on a day to remember.

Which leaves our little rumble in Rangiora. Unfortunately New Zealand Cricket gets a big fat pink brickbat from me for creating official confusion over what the defending champion Knights needed to do in their final match, against hosts the Canterbury Wizards, to take out the title.

It turns out that NZC had a crucial piece of information wrong on its Plunket Shield points table - so yes, more intrigue. Going into the round, the points table stated that the Canterbury Wizards had had three full eight-point wins and one six-point win - i.e. four wins overall, while the Knights were on three wins overall. Meanwhile, the few media covering the game in Rangiora were fairly sure that if the Knights beat the Wizards in Rangiora, the Knights would be in a position to retain the Shield by virtue of having had more wins (they also had to hope the Stags didn’t get an outright and finish with a superior net runs per wicket ratio).

Cue me formally querying this with NZC before play on day two - was the points table correct, in the event of equal points between the aforementioned teams, would the title come down to most wins or the third determinant, the net runs per wicket ratio?

NZC emailed me back saying, “If the teams are equal on the number of outright wins then the winner is determined by the higher net average per wicket. If ND won against Canty they would be on the same number of wins and the higher net average per wicket calculation would decide who wins.”

Alas, this was nonsense. NZC’s points table was wrong, but they hadn’t realised their error. Canterbury had in fact had only three wins (against the Knights, Aces and Firebirds), not four. So if the Knights beat the Wizards (and ASSUMING the Stags behaved in Napier), the higher net average wicket calculation wouldn’t have mattered at all - the Knights would been winners because they would have had four wins to the Wizards’ three. It would only have mattered if the Stags had won their match.

NZC did finally realise their mistake and corrected the points table error on day four - the last day of the competition. But that was a little too late for poor old brain-addled me, and anyone else checking in to find out what the story was - so humble apologies for putting you crook earlier in the week. As you can see we were officially put crook ourselves.

OK, now that I’ve got that off my chest.... the good thing about the Rangiora rumble was that, despite the damp weather hanging about the general environs, we got a full game in the end, a result after both teams made the most of available play and really went for it. Positive, attacking cricket from both sides, neither wanting anything less than an outright - risky but fun. Canterbury got past the Knights’ 149 for the two first-innings points, but the Knights were still after the final six available. With Canterbury stopped at 278, their lead wasn’t huge - although in the final analysis, it was pivotal.

The Knights wound it up to 318 in their second dig, Brook Hatwell finding himself with a lot on his shoulders once more in his debut season and pushing his highest first-class score out to 73. In support, Graeme Aldridge went close to getting another first-class 50 for the season, but when wickets began to tumble once more, Canterbury took control of the match and the Shield. They needed 190 in their second innings to lift it, and the aggression of openers Rob Nicol (61 off 63) and Michael Papps set it up. At 10 minutes past two on day four, the Wizards were striding off Mainpower Oval as the new holders of the Plunket Shield. The Rangiora rumble had just turned into the eight-wicket Rangiora rout.

We’ll miss that pretty trophy that’s graced the Northern Districts Cricket Association headquarters in Hamilton for the past year. They better not scratch it - we want it back in good condition next year. After an early visit to the top of the table and then the meat of the season closing the gap on the Stags, keeping themselves right in contention until the last, ultimately the Knights have wound up in fourth place. That narrow loss against the Aces in Hamilton a few weeks ago indeed proved costly, but there are always plenty of ‘might have beens’ in cricket. Congratulations to the Wizards on coming up trumps, a team that thumped us twice in one season certainly deserves it.

So that’s it, last day of the cricket season over. But if you think you’re getting rid of me now, the bad news is that I’ll be here as usual every week right through the off-season with my pink ramblings. Tune in next week for a wrap of tomorrow’s Northern Districts season awards evening and I’ll be keeping you posted with what our players are up to over the winter with their guest blogs from around the globe.

Last word for the season? Easy. We’ve still got one piece of silverware in the cupboard. Go the Hawke Cup!