The Pink Report

Review of 2009/10

With a shot at three national trophies last summer, the Northern Knights bagged two of them. Two out of three ain’t bad and the team and coaching staff can be proud of dominating so many matches with a strong, balanced and feisty team.

The side was defending its title in the New Zealand Cricket One-Day Competition and although the Auckland Aces snuck ahead to earn hosting rights for the 2010 final, the Knights blitzed the Central Stags with an 83-run win in the preliminary finals and then held their nerve against the Aucklanders to claim ultimate season bragging rights in a tight, heart-in-the-mouth finale.

Then the Knights became the first team since the seventies to have its name inscribed on the iconic, resurrected Plunket Shield. First contested in the early 1900s, with the advent of commercial sponsorship in 1975 the competition had morphed into the Shell Trophy, and later became the State Championship. Yet even through those modern years, the old name kept a power about it. It was a nostalgic reminder to all of the days when first-class cricket was the be-all and end-all, when so much provincial pride and gravity rested on the results of those games that crowds swelled the bleachers... before limited overs cricket came along and forever changed the game.

Although first-class cricket has been contested for over a century in New Zealand, Northern Districts has a shorter history - it’s the youngest domestic major association, having been carved from former Auckland territory to make its first-class debut in the 1956/57 season. Since then, northerners have topped the country seven times, and only once before - in the early 1960s - had the side got its name on the actual, revered piece of silverware.

So, winning the reborn Plunket Shield was special. Every side in the country hungered to be the first to reclaim that trophy and, stacked with talent, the Knights played handsomely to dominate the double round robin as convincingly as they did. They finished well clear, with their six outright wins two more than any other team could put on the table.

Two out of three ain’t bad, but three from three is special. That’s because no team in New Zealand history has won three men’s titles in a season. The Knights ended their summer on a bittersweet high when they realised just how close they had come to making that history. Their narrow downing by ultimate HRV Cup season champions the Central Stags in the closing round stung hard. Still, if the Knights can lift the coming season’s Twenty20 title, they will become the first side to at least hold all three trophies in their cabinet at one time.
Despite last season’s powerhouse form, it’s a challenge they’re not underestimating. Coach Grant Bradburn says that throughout winter training, the squad’s catch phrase has been this: “We need to improve just to stay the same”. That’s to say, they’re well aware they had a good summer, but they know they need to improve - because their rivals will improve. And chase hard. Winning another one, two - or maybe even three - cups this season won’t be beyond a team that’s got such a talented line-up, stability and experience. They know how to win - but more significantly, they’re simply burning to go one better.