The Pink Report

New Stars Rising?

When the Northern Districts selectors named their squad for the resumption of the Plunket Shield in Whangarei this week, there were a whopping six changes from the Yahoo!Xtra Northern Knights team that played the last first-class game at the same ground in November.

To recap, that Plunket Shield round three match against Canterbury was the horror game in which the Knights crashed and burned by an innings - dismissed for 119 and then 93 in reply to a 300-plus total from the visitors. It was a rude awakening to the senses after the first-innings victory over the Volts and 10-wicket outright over the Firebirds that had got the 2010/11 season off to such a good start and I remember thinking at the time that at least a good HRV Cup and one-day season would see all the boys starting nice and fresh come February.

Well, it’s February and we’re starting fresh all right - just under more difficult circumstances, without the glut of form and confidence we’d hoped for, after the one-day season went from glum to glummer. Missing now from that pre-Christmas Plunket Shield squad is Anton Devcich, Joey Yovich and Bradley Scott, as well as James Marshall who’s temporarily unavailable because twin brother Hamish is getting married. Youngsters Owen Ivins (who was filling in for Pete McGlashan while his thumb healed) and Keir Bettley were the others involved in November, while young contracted player Anurag Verma is out for the rest of the summer with an ab injury.

Enter right-handed batsman Brook Hatwell, who at 27 will be making his first-class debut if selected to take the field, after having joined the Knights for a fair one-day debut in the latter stages of the one-day comp (side-note: can New Zealand Cricket not just name it the Turner Cup or something, pleeease? Hard for host associations to promote a competition that doesn’t have a good name, let alone construct flowing prose in blogs. Just sayin’).

And 21-year-old right-arm quick bowler Andrew Mathieson really ups the youth factor: Andy’s second first-class cap is on the cards, having been christened earlier in that torrid Wizards match. So, the full starting-over twelve for the Stags match on Thursday:

Brad Wilson (captain)
BJ Watling
Daniel Flynn
Michael Parlane
Brook Hatwell
Pete McGlashan
Jono Boult
Graeme Aldridge
Trent Boult
Jason Donnelly
Brent Arnel
Andrew Mathieson

I’m going to be very interested to see how this youngish side goes in Whangarei, needing to go hard against the Stags to peg them back on the points table. And best of luck to them, with a slightly dodgy weather forecast poised to potentially work in the pace bowlers’ favour. The Stags are out in front on 24 points, meaning a one-game cushion at the moment between them and the chasing Knights and Wizards, both on 10. Teams get eight points for an outright, two points for a first innings win (even if they go on to lose) and remember there’s no final: the points table is the sole judge and jury of the season.

Anyway, enough of me. For a little more insight, I caught up with coach Grant Bradburn for his thoughts on how the team dealt with their one-day dramas, any selectorial conundra and a general state-of-the-ND-nation as we truck into the back half of the season. Here’s what Grant had to say.

On selecting the squad...

It wasn’t difficult at all as essentially the guys select themselves through the process and selection policies that we have in place, which are based on performance. The three teams - the twenty20, one-day and first-class sides - are totally different now and are becoming more and more demarcated as seasons go on. Everyone in the squad understands that a different skill set is required for each format, with even the twenty20 being a subtly different skill set from the one-dayers. We’re starting to specialise more and more and have an unbelievable amount of young talent coming through in Northern Districts cricket through our Craigs Academy programme and the work that coach James Pamment and Craig Ross are doing - we’ve got a whole bunch of guys who are starting to tap on the door now, and we’ve probably got four or five guys who are standing on the porch about to knock. Within, I would say, 12 months we’re going to have seven or eight fantastic youngsters who are ready to embark on first-class cricket. So there’s a lot of healthy competition for places and as we ‘reviewed’ together as a team in Queenstown, we said that this was the last time this season that this team would play together until everyone comes together again next one-day season.

What’s behind ND’s depth?

It’s generally been our policy that we foster from within. We’re not averse to having players coming from outside our district boundaries - in fact, we had 10 enquiries last year from players who wanted to come join the Knights because they’d seen the success we’d had with our structure and system and the enjoyment factor of the players, but right now there’s no need to look outside our own ranks. Jason Donnelly is the exception in that he’s moved to ND from Auckland, and he committed to moving to the Bay of Plenty last winter and playing in ND even without a contract. He has shown the real desire and work ethic that we like and earned the right to take his place as a specialist spinner in this four-day campaign with performance, so we’re really excited to have his skills available.

What’s the most exciting aspect of the squad you’ve just picked?

The balance of the team is something of which we’re always very conscious and the side we’ve been able to select for this Stags game is probably one of the most balanced teams that we’ve put out in recent years: five specialist batsmen, a wicketkeeper who is obviously capable of playing as a batsman as well and we will pick five specialist bowlers. We’ve got a good left/right mix right through, we’ve got swing bowlers, we’ve got the perfect combination of right and left-arm spin and we’ve got a very young, promising, raw quick bowler in Andrew Mathieson, whom we believe is destined to go a long way in the game.

Thoughts on new recruit Brook Hatwell...

Brook got one opportunity in the one-day competition in Wellington in terms of a contribution and gave us 45 runs, and stayed with the squad in Queenstown. He learnt a huge amount just from being in the Knights environment and he’ll be better for the experience at that level. He epitomised the performance-based selection policy really in that Brook’s been the outstanding batsman in terms of performance at Northern Districts A and Fergus Hickey level. He’s earned his right over a number of years to get an opportunity at first-class level.

What happens now for the remaining contracted guys like Joey, Anton and Bradley?

Hamilton has a Hawke Cup challenge coming up (March 11-13) and hopefully for them, if they can win the Hawke Cup, the Hamilton-based guys (Anton) will have some very competitive cricket to play in the meantime. Anton hasn’t made the initial selection for the four-day side, but definitely competes for a late-middle order batting spot and is someone clearly capable with the ball. Bradley Scott is right in there in terms of the next group of seam and swing bowlers, amongst two or three others from Northern Districts A who have been very good over the season and who are advancing quickly towards first-class cricket. So the reality is that performance is what will win a spot in the team, going forward. It’s the aspect we’ll measure the most.

When did the one-day comp become tough going, do you think?

When you lose, it’s always tough going. We were champions two years running and we were all gutted that we weren’t able to put our best on the park with that one-day team. At times we batted very well and at times we bowled very well, but not often were we able to put those performances together on one day and really get some momentum going. There were a number of factors that we’ve identified and earmarked for improvement next year - the current group is still learning their trade. One of the key factors clearly was that we didn’t have Kane Williamson this year, except for one match when he was released from the BLACKCAPS. Last season he not only gave us 600 runs, but 13 wickets, and if you take those performances and line them up against this year’s statistics - well, Kane would have been number one in the country in the batting and number three in the bowling. Although we gained contributions from Scott Styris, that’s a massive weight of performance that we lost from our winning team from last year. Lots of guys got opportunities as a result of Kane not being around, however, and the cool thing is those guys have had learning opportunities. Our one-day set-up will be richer for that next season. So we’re not yet at the level we were at last year, but with the resources and players coming through, I have every confidence that our performances will, in future, match those of previous years, with different clientele.

One trophy left... realistically can we win it?

We set out every year in our planning to win every competition of course, but we and our board are realistic that there will be fluctuations with personnel and if we win one competition a year, that is an incredible achievement in itself bearing in mind that in Northern Districts history, you only have to look on the dressing-room wall to know that success and trophies haven’t been common in our environment, up until two years ago. We’ve generally won a trophy, then waited a period of two or three years before we’ve won another one. We set out a plan to buck that trend and the last two years we’ve done that: we’ve won three trophies in two years, with another one in our sights this year. We’re really looking forward to coming together on Monday and relaunching our game plan - we’re very hungry to put ourselves in position to get that Plunket Shield title for the season.