The Pink Report
Back to The Pink ReportGroundhog Day In Whangarei
Heavens to Betsy, I’m not sure my frail constitution can take many more of these one-day games. Tight finishes every match is doing quite unnatural things to my cardiac rhythms. And as for Bradley Scott, the poor fellow is hallucinating. He had a strange feeling of déjà vu, as he stood at the crease on Sunday needing to hit the second-to-last ball of the innings for a boundary, with no wickets in hand, that he’d been in this spot of bother before.
In his dreams, the ball went soaring over the boundary and the other team was wearing green. No hang on, that wasn’t a dream, that was Wednesday. And now the other team was wearing yellow, and instead of sailing over the boundary to win the match in stunningly heroic fashion, the ball sailed into the hands of their Aussie allrounder, Stewart Rhodes. Game over. Ah well. You win some, you lose some.
Keeping our glasses half full, the Yahoo!Xtra Northern Knights are still in primo position on the one-day points table, with two wins from their first three matches. They’re on eight points, joined by the Aces and Volts.
After Lou Vincent's sensational century led to a high-scoring win over the Wizards, if the official points table is to be believed (it’s had a few gremlins this summer), the Aces have a slight overall net run rate advantage of 0.139, but with the Knights just a smidgen into negative territory (really, 0.001), that’s nothing to fret about at this point. With only eight games in the regular competition, I’ll settle for being in the top bracket at this stage - with a decent chance of beating Otago in Invercargill this Wednesday. Even though the Firebirds got up at Cobham Oval, on form you’d still rate the Firebirds and Volts as the two weakest teams this summer - so playing both of them twice is not a bad draw. The Aces the Knights won’t play again (unless they meet in the finals) and, likewise, they tango with Canterbury just the once.
Anyway, back to Whangarei and the Firebirds. The Cobham Oval thiller produced some positives for the Knights in spite of the result, with James Marshall gutsing through for a substantial score (64 off 48, including a six and seven fours - hopefully that’s the bad trot behind him), BJ Watling playing another strong anchor role and Scott Styris giving a masterclass in one-day economy, bowling his 10 overs for a miserable 27 runs to go with his half-century with the bat.
Game by game, the batting seems to be coming together. But with the BLACKCAPS’ National Bank one-dayers with Pakistan just around the corner now, the Knights are set to lose the services of Scotty and Pete McGlashan soon, and it will get interesting if the World Cup squad selectors also want to have a better look at Daniel Flynn and perhaps BJ.
The bad news? I have a feeling in my bones that I’m going to be getting tetchy with La Niña again in the next fortnight. Metservice is predicting a bit of wet for the very day I plan to be watching cricket in Whangarei. With only eight rounds, Metservice needs to sort its act out and get the sunshine logo happening on match days. And none of that half-and-half stuff either, because the only thing that makes me tetchier than La Niña is the Duckworth-Lewis system.
***
And now for something completely different. Northern Districts has one of the best records of recent years in the Hawke Cup, which is cricket’s version of the Ranfurly Shield and played between district associations nationwide. The cup overwintered in Hamilton in 2001, 2005, 2006 and 2008 and Northland babysat the silverware in between, in 2003.
Brothers Trent and Jono Boult were in the Bay of Plenty side that tried to wrench it off Manawatu last season, but the holders had an impressive line-up (it featured Jamie How, Aaron Milne, George Worker and Bevan Griggs) and kept challengers off the ramparts - until they fell to Oamaru-based North Otago in an upset at the end of the season. “The greatest moment in North Otago’s cricket history”, wrote Otago Daily Times sports editor and proud North Otago man Hayden Meikle.
Hawke Cup battles are renowned for their intensity and are not for the faint-hearted or easily-offended (the three-day matches can be won on the first innings, so there’s no messing about). Nevertheless, a hundred years of challenges was celebrated in the most civil of settings this past weekend in Wellington with a centennial dinner. Ross Dykes, Jock Sutherland and NDCA life member Alan Whimp picked a “Hawke Cup team of the century”, based not just on performance, but on the player’s contribution to his district as a player, and once again Northern Districts is well represented.
In batting order, the official “Hawke Cup team of the century” is: