The Pink Report

Just Timing Our Run!

It’s all on now. After a rare tie in Whangarei against the Volts last week and an equally frustrating loss away to the Firebirds, the Yahoo!Xtra Northern Knights find themselves in a must-win situation for their final round match against the Stags in Whangarei this Wednesday.

The men’s one-day points table currently looks like this:

Unfortunately my brain specialises in words and not in any form of scientific calculation or numerical retention whatsoever (no good at reading maps in less than 10 minutes either), so after the loss of many severely-taxed brain cells I’ve done my best to nut out the following permutations come Wednesday night and take no responsibility for them whatsoever.

If the Firebirds thump the Aces with a bonus point and the Knights lose to the Stags, we miss out on the playoffs. If the Firebirds beat the Aces regular-style without a bonus point, and the Knights lose, the Firebirds and Knights will finish on equal points - but the Firebirds will still go through to the playoffs as they will have racked up more victories than the Knights.

The good news here for Knights fans? The Metservice forecast for The Temple of Cobham is bright streaming sunshine, while the forecast at the Basin Reserve is....... drizzle. But hey, the weather owes us one.  

So that’s the worst-case scenario. Now what of the top four? Let’s say the Wizards beat the Volts in Timaru (forecast fine), the Aces manage to get in a match and beat the Firebirds and the Knights take care of the Stags - and no one gets greedy and bags bonus points.

That would see the Knights finish in third spot, which in theory wouldn’t be a bad thing since it’s the first- and third-placed teams that host the first two semi-finals (then the loser of 1v2 hosts the winner of 3v4 in a sudden death match to confirm the second spot in the final). Visiting teams struggle to adjust their style to the vastness of Cobham Oval, where the boundaries are a long way away, so in theory third would be all good for the Knights.

If the Aces lose to the Firebirds and the Wizards beat the Volts, the Knights and Aces would finish equal on 18 points behind only the Wizards, but the Knights would still be officially the third-placed team because the Aces would still have more wins overall (is your brain starting to hurt yet? Mine is).

Next scenario. Let’s say the Volts rack up another win and the Aces suffer a washout. Well, win or lose in Whangarei, that would leave the Knights in fourth spot.

Come what may in the other matches on Wednesday, the outcome the Knights most desire is simply to kick up a gear and put a more complete performance on the park.

In some respects, the defending champions have had a good work-up through the competition since almost every match has gone down to the wire. It’s meant the master sloggers of the lower order have had lots of practice throwing the bat at the ball under pressure - so another high-pressure situation, which is what you expect in finals cricket, isn’t going to faze anyone.

Super-calm anchor Kane Williamson (now lost to the BLACKCAPS) and Bradley Scott were tasked with needing 14 off the final over against the Volts in Whangarei, with Bradley on strike for the last three deliveries. Been there, done that! Although he couldn’t quite find a massive six off McSkimming to win the match this time, his guts and composure certainly averted a loss.

Unfortunately the turning point in the match had come a little earlier when Graeme Aldridge was run out going for his third run. That’s if you think the ball didn’t actually touch the boundary rope before the Otago fielder got to it. Those boundaries are a long way away from the umpires too, dammit.

There are always a lot of “what ifs?” in a tight match, but to be fair the tied match in Whangarei really came down to an aberrant performance in the field from the Knights. After two consecutive washouts (the abandonment in Invercargill, followed by the cyclone dump in Whangarei) I felt they really looked like a team that hadn’t bowled or fielded for a week and gave away a good 30 runs. Eight of the 11 extras were wides - and that really stung a side that prides itself on its tidiness with the ball in hand.

You could detect a concerted effort to restore the accuracy in the following match against the Firebirds, and while there was the odd glitch, they did better - in the face of a blustery Basin Reserve northerly. One of the team’s big strengths is that James Marshall has a lot of bowlers up his sleeve, and can rely on go-to man “G” to squeeze up the batsmen and make a breakthrough and Bradley Scott to keep it calm through the middle.

It was interesting in Wellington to see both captains really shuffling their cards, trying to stop the opposition batsmen from settling in and keeping them on their toes at the death. To be able to do that, you’ve really got to have bowlers you can back from either end, who can hit their mark straight away without needing to build up their rhythm. The Knights have good talent and depth in the bowling ranks.

And the batting? Despite handy contributions, I can’t help feeling that several of the players are running at  80 per cent of their potential - ticking the score over without quite getting on top of the opposition attacks.

James Marshall and Anton Devcich are both working their way back from a bad trot and chipping in well, but sometimes it takes a wee while to regain the confidence to really cut loose. Others like Joey Yovich haven’t had a lot of cricket yet could be tasked with a pivotal role in the finals (just in case you missed it, it was great to see the big fella smacking Grant Elliott for a six and three fours off four consecutive balls in Welly), while the team has missed Daniel Flynn’s top order wow-factor. The good news is that Flynny’s groin injury has healed and he’s in the 12 for Whangarei on Wednesday.

Oh and by the way, what alien planet kidnapped the languishing Wellington Firebirds on the weekend and replaced them with players who can bat and bowl? The selectors’ boldness in dropping a couple of underperforming senior players really put a bomb under the rest of their team, but I’m starting to wonder if they don’t just save it all up for when they play the Knights.

Their only two wins in this one-day comp (New Zealand Cricket really have to come up with a name for it soon) have come at the Knights’ expense, and they got one over us in one of the HRV Cup encounters too, despite finding that competition tough going. Hopefully it will be payback time soon enough, when the top four are confirmed.


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Congrats to the Northern Districts Under-23s who put up a solid showing at their national tournament in Lincoln this last week. ND won their penultimate one-dayer against Canterbury by 31 runs, then squashed Auckland in a low-scoring match the following day, but it wasn’t enough to oust Central Districts from the top of the points table.

Central had narrowly beaten them on the first innings in the drawn three-dayer that opened the tournament, ND bowled out for 296 in reply to CD’s 303/9 declared. Daryl Mitchell and captain Michael Dodunski both scored centuries in that innings, and were to the fore again when they strangled Wellington in the one-dayers, winning by six wickets (Dodunski 85, Mitchell 69, Bharat Popli 56, James Baker 4/41).

The final National Under-23 tournament points standings for 2011:

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Final thought for the day: our best wishes to Matthew Bell in his future beyond cricket. Belly announced his retirement from the game last week after an impressive 17 years of first-class cricket.

He was just 17 when he first represented Northern Districts, the youngest ever to have represented the team, and likewise first made the BLACKCAPS at an age when many still have their training wheels in the game. He went on to play 14 summers for Wellington, averaging over 40 and netting 20 first-class centuries, including three double tons.

He’s the only New Zealand batsman to have twice scored 1000 runs in the domestic first-class season and topped the New Zealand test batting averages on its landmark 1999 tour of England with 37.75 - hitting the winning runs to claim the test victory at Lord’s.

That was one of 18 tests he played, but Belly’s relatively few tastes of international cricket belied his deep commitment to get the very best out of his game and himself. Cricketers and media types around the traps will miss his personable nature and intelligent conversations after a day’s play, but Belly’s looking forward to spending a bit more of his summers with wife Nicky now and plans to pursue studies in sports massage and his business interests. All the best fella - and hope to see you back involved with cricket at some point.