The Pink Report

Glitter In The Gloom

Last Wednesday, the biggest thing on James Baker’s mind was playing for Hamilton. His six-foot-four frame curled over his desk in Mainfreight’s Hamilton office as he checked off his last few tasks ahead of the impending trip down to Blenheim, to Horton Park where they’d meet Central zone winners and Cup holders Marlborough in their one big shot at stealing away the Hawke Cup this season.

A few kilometres away at Seddon Park, Northern Districts selector and operations manager Pat Malcon was trying to reach the young bowler on his mobile, not knowing that James had just got a new phone that wasn’t up and running yet. Eventually an email flashed up on James’s work screen - Pat, asking him to ring him as soon as possible. Thinking it was something to do with the Hawke Cup trip, James dialled the number without an inkling of how dramatically his weekend, let alone his sporting career, was about to change.

The Yahoo!Xtra Northern Knights were up in Whangarei playing the Firebirds and frontline pace bowler Graeme Aldridge had broken down mid-match with a sore back. Pat was ringing to tell James that he was being drafted into the Knights squad for the next match as cover, so he wouldn’t be travelling to Blenheim after all.

Now to say this all came as a bit of a shock to the cricketer is something of an understatement. But then that seems to have been the story of the unassuming young man’s career. A crash course on James’s background: a few years ago, Northern Districts selector Colin Stevens was working with the Hamilton squad when, on the adjacent field, he spotted a big young teenager bowling in a club game.

“We were side-on to him and you could see he had a beautiful action,” recalls Colin (who doesn’t have a bad track record, since he was instrumental in picking another young Hamilton teenager once called Daniel Vettori). “He had it all there, so we got him involved in the nets and brought him into the squad.”

James hadn’t come up through the usual Northern Districts age-group talent development system. He went to Hillcrest High, which isn’t one of the bigger cricket schools in Hamilton. “We had no real superstars there, but good coaches and a good, solid team so I really enjoyed cricket through high school - which I think is why I’m still playing today.”

The induction into a rep team full of seasoned older guys at Hamilton was a nerve-wracking time for a kid fresh out of high school who hadn’t had much technical coaching - which might not matter all that much, but can still toy with your confidence. “It might have helped me, actually,” James reflects now. “Bowling is a natural thing for me and I guess I didn’t try to think about it too much. But yeah, when I first played for Hamilton I remember I was pretty nervous.”

From there he moved into the ND under-19s, going to the national tournament in Lincoln but bowling only 12 overs all tournament, which made him think he might not be much chop. But he  kept working at it and made the Northern Districts A side. A couple of seasons ago he got a four-for against Auckland A at Colin Maiden Park, and while that’s as close as he’s got to a “bag”, he’s grown a steady reputation as a handy support bowler, a guy who’s consistent rather than  spectacular.

This year he featured in the Northern Districts under-23 team that went close to the national title at Lincoln, but again there he didn’t think of himself as anything special. He certainly didn’t think he was close to making the Northern Knights squad: first-class cricket was something he “really hadn’t thought about”.

So cut back to the look of shock on the 22-year-old’s face as he sat in his Mainfreight office. He had so genuinely not dreamed of a call-up that he suddenly found himself dealing with an amalgam of different emotions - at once excited and nervous (about making the Knights squad) and gutted (about missing the Hawke Cup match, which he’d been really looking forward to) and “in a real weird mood for a bit!”

When you first spy James Baker’s big, strong frame, you might imagine him to be an aggressive fast bowler type with the sort of bouncer that can rearrange your face. But as you may have surmised from the intro above, he’s actually more akin to a Willie Watson (or a Graeme Aldridge, for that matter): bowls along the pitch for good, consistent line and length, moving it nicely away off the seam. His height enables him to be deceptive, however; to dig it into the track to surprise the batsmen with bounce and sharpness - something coach James Pamment has been encouraging him to do more in the As and under-23s this season.

So what was it like for this young man stepping into the Knights milieu for the first time?

“I was really nervous Friday night - and that was from just thinking about Saturday training,” he says candidly. “I didn’t really know what the guys thought of me, or what exactly my role would be in the team, but once I met up with them on Saturday morning it was real good. The guys like G (Aldridge) and Bradley Scott, the team’s leadership group and Grant Bradburn all reassured me that I deserved to be there and that what I’ve been doing in the past worked and that’s what I’d been chosen to do.”

Bradley Scott was of course facing a wee test of his mettle himself, having been left out of the Plunket Shield squad since the one-day season, and now recalled in Aldridge’s absence. James admired the way the senior pro pushed aside his own concerns to focus on helping a newcomer.  

“He’s huge for me, such a good guy - and just having a couple of familiar faces like Brad(ley) and Brookie Hatwell helped my nerves. Brookie plays for Hamilton and I’ve seen Brad play a lot lately, I’ve played a lot against him and he’s scored runs in every single game. I bowled my first over too wide - I was just too scared about getting hit, but having guys like them out there helped settle me down. After that I just got into my work, keeping it simple, just bowling line and length like I normally do. I was actually surprised by how comfortable I was, then - and that had a lot to do with the team, the way they had welcomed me and the way they were supportive out there.”

It helped that the opening combo of Trent Boult and Brent Arnel had already sliced the top off the Aces’ order before the change bowlers had come on - Bradley chipping in to take out Tim McIntosh in his third over, followed by Brad Cachopa caught and bowled before lunch to have the Aces teetering at 65/5. After the break, it was the debutant’s turn - his maiden wicket the former test player and Auckland skipper Gareth Hopkins, followed by Jimmy Neesham to finish with a neat and tidy two for 32 off his 23 overs.

That big first wicket to get off the mark was just what the doctor ordered. After that, the Aucklanders had found him hard to get away as his confidence grew. Just a pity that the Knights would be thwarted, not for the last time in the match, by an ungainly but stubborn tailend partnership when Bruce Martin - who seems to have a point to prove every time he plays against his old team - and Michael Bates put on 103 runs for the ninth wicket, almost half the Auckland first innings total.

Things started well enough for the Knights the following morning, with the last wickets knocked over almost immediately. Record-setters in Whangarei, BJ Watling and Brad Wilson strode out determined to put a good first innings partnership on the board this time - 229 needed for first innings points . This time, however, BJ was sent back on 25 as Bruce Martin sent his off-pole cartwheeling. It brought to an end 1075 consecutive minutes on the field for BJ: just over 17.9 hours.  

Daniel Flynn got off the mark immediately with a four and was trucking along with Brad when Tim McIntosh pulled off a stunning one-handed catch, almost miraculously stopping a ball that Daniel had just smashed to Africa. 136/2 became 136/3 when Hamish Marshall departed soon after. On 71, Brad was in sight of scoring a rare threepeat of hundreds from as many first-class games before he was bowled by Bates. Pete McGlashan came to the rescue with a saviour innings of 69 before the tailenders scrabbled and pushed the Knights’ lead out to 63. The first innings points were at least secure - but it was hardly the big advantage the home team had hoped for after all the drama of the first day.

Needless to say that since it was clear that Chris Martin was bowling on one of his favourite hunting grounds and the irrepressible Bruce Martin had a chip on his shoulder, the pressure was on to bomb them again in the third innings. Trent and Brent took care of the openers once more and when Bradley trapped de Boorder the Aces were 47/3. James Baker then stopped an annoying little partnership from growing when he took his third wicket of the match, Anaru Kitchen for 46. But Hopkins carried on, grinding into the 80s with new partner Brad Cachopa. It took the second new ball to get rid of them, Mr. T. Boult striking twice in an innings that saw no less than seven batsmen given lbw. With the Aces on 223/7 the Knights were back in prime position: it was vital that this time they didn’t let them off the hook.

Which is where we come to my favourite bit of the match. And trust me, I didn’t have too many favourite bits in this match (don’t even ask me about the dropped catches). I rate Michael Bates as an emerging talent - I wouldn’t be surprised to see him come into contention for national honours sooner or later. I was just thinking to myself that the last thing the Knights needed was for him to dig in again for some nasty tailend resistance when in runs our big, accurate debutant and neatly bowls him for just two runs. Very next ball, he had Bruce Martin for a golden duck, lbw. James Baker, who hadn’t even thought himself ready for the first-class game, was now on a hat-trick in his maiden match - and came within a centimetre, maybe even a millimetre of what would have been an extraordinary occurrence when his next ball whistled oh-so-close past Chris Martin’s unprotected stump.

Aaaaarghhhhh. If only Daryl Tuffey hadn’t meanwhile stuck around for another of those late order annoyances - 41 runs from his bat. If only we hadn’t bowled him candy. If only he really had been on his way to the World Cup the day before, as one newspaper website had had us believe, to join the BLACKCAPS. Don’t ask me about the final innings, OK?

So let’s go back to talking about James then. As he sat in his new spot in the Knights’ home dressing room at the end of the match the following day, no one would have blamed him for having a few mixed emotions. On the one hand, he’d given a commendable performance in his maiden match, nerves and all - and experienced a battle with so many gripping twists and turns, dramas and encores that he could see why first-class cricket can become an addiction. The team had very nearly broken an eight-year drought at Seddon Park - the Seddon Park curse, some call it. The last outright for the team here in a first-class match was way back in 2002 (or was it 2003? See, so long ago I can’t remember....) and for a while there he could scarcely believe his luck at being in the side that seemed set to crack it - in his maiden game.

On the other hand, he was now sitting in the losing shed.

This is what I liked about James. Eventually, as the players drifted out, he came out filled with even more enthusiasm for the game. He’ll always remember that last session, he said (in which Brook Hatwell - who had never faced the likes of Chris Martin in a first-class match before - and Bradley Scott showed their guts as they doggedly tried to save it for the team, after a top and middle order mass collapse, and against a fired-up Auckland attack that was going for the kill. Chasing 197, the Knights were ultimately all out 18 runs short. But hey, told you I didn’t want to talk about it...)

“You see a lot about people when things aren’t going their way and I think I learnt a lot in that changing room, just then,” said James as we sat staring out over the vacant field. “Just watching the guys, how people react when they haven’t won. I was talking to Brad Scott in there about just backing my abilities against good players. In the end a bowler’s still a bowler and a batsman is still a batsman. There were some good players in that game, but you can’t get too star-struck...”

Not that anyone would exactly taunt him for getting out for a duck to test swing bowler Chris Martin at the end, who ended up with nine-for. Who had he found the most difficult to bowl against? “It was probably Gareth Hopkins. Beagle (coach Grant Bradburn) asked me that in the first innings and I told him Hopkins because he’s such a nuggety, hard player - I was just watching him when the other bowlers were running in, seeing just how focused he is. I didn’t have to bowl too many at the top five though - that probably helped me a bit - because obviously Brent and Trent did a good job with the new ball.”

He was physically feeling it, and had been very sore the previous day from having bowled four short, sharp spells in a day - something he’s not used to. He’s always bowled long spells in club cricket, but in club or rep cricket that’s usually just one or two long spells before the spinners take it up. He’d started this summer with an injury, a side strain, so has already been working hard on building more core strength and stamina. He’d shifted some weight from his middle, and now he’s even keener to step up the conditioning some more to the almost brutal standards needed to cut it at this level. He chatted, too, about working on his batting, how he wanted to keep improving his defence as a tailender, and his concentration.

Four demanding days, a tough result, and a heck of an encouragement: that was his Northern Knights debut. And like all good steady-Eddies with the ball, he was already finding motivation within himself to keep going, and to quietly know he’d done his job - with or without the glory.

While consistency earned James his debut in the team there at Seddon Park, it was the way he stood up to the pressure that’s seen him retained in the squad that’s now in Napier to take on the Stags  - who at least didn’t get a points jump on the Knights in the last round, after their match down south was weather-mucked. The Stags still lead the Knights by just two points, with the Volts and Wizards the other teams realistically in with a chance of the title. And they just happen to be the three teams the Knights have on their remaining dance card.

I’m sparing a thought for Brook Hatwell at this pioint, who’s been squeezed out of the side yet again by captain James Marshall’s return from illness. Three games for the Knights this summer (his first was in the one-day comp) and every time the rookie batsman has stood up.

Maybe his handle is the problem. Players with unique names are  in the minority. There’s been no other Brooks in the side this summer, or Hatwells. But we’ve now got a James and a James, whose nicknames are Jimmy and Jimmy, not to mention assorted Boults and Marshalls, a Trent and a Brent,  Brad, Bradley and Bradley-John, a player Graeme and a team manager Graham. There are even two Margots floating around at times. Bonus points if you know how many twins have played for the Knights this summer. So much for keeping it simple!

JAMES BAKER GETS CONGRATULATED BY THE KNIGHTS IN HAMILTON                 COPYRIGHT MARGOT BUTCHER