The Pink Report

Southern Discomfort

Someone needs to sort out these mugginses at New Zealand Cricket in time for next summer. The scheduling this season has proved highly contentious. They must know by now that if they schedule Twenty20 games for the New Year, a cyclone or storm front will appear, and it will rain. When they sit down in winter to work out the domestic schedules, they need to make sure there are no cricket matches whatsoever anywhere in New Zealand on December 31st or January 1st each year. It’s the only way we’re going to guarantee blissfully fine weather for our celebrations.

Yes, I’m being facetious again, but I’m not the slightest bit pleased by the forecast that has a slow-moving front full of wet stuff slowly drifting across the land this very minute. On the bright side, you never know until the day. The forecast said there was supposed to be rain where I am over the past two days; we got a few light showers. We might have played cricket in the backyard. Doubly annoying, then, that yesterday evening’s encounter in Dunedin with the Volts didn’t go to plan, seeings as they were supposed to only have a few showers...

It was definitely a shame for the 1500 spectators who put up with several rain breaks and a protracted affair that stretched over three hours, with the number of overs available revised a couple of times before the damp clouds and poor light finally put paid to the Yahoo!NZ Northern Knights’ anticipated victory over the Volts.

Brendon McCullum excepted, the Volts’ batsmen mucked around too much to convince me they were putting up a serious challenge batting first, 77/5 when their innings was finally deemed over (the match was reduced to 17 overs by that stage, then it became 11). When, eventually, after a lengthy rain and then ground-keeping delay, the Knights went into bat, 82 off 11 would win it for them. A few lusty blows, some good light and that shouldn’t have troubled the batting line-up. Alas, the glum weather wanted to stick around and watch, and by now it was all too dark to play. I bet you it was a cracker of a day in Alexandra.

The win would have been handy after the previous round, which saw the team beaten by the Aces on a breezy day in Auckland. The track was a good one for batting and the Knights’ total of 155/5 felt a little short. They needed to bowl well, but the Aucklanders were up to it - particularly Colin de Grandhomme, whose short but brutal and punchy knock was the difference - and got home by three wickets. Even with the unhappy distraction of Andre Adams wearing one of Tim Southee’s bouncers on his forehead, causing Andre to depart for hospital with a fair cut to the eyebrow and concussion. It will be interesting to observe whether it prompts Andre to reassess how he’s been playing the short ball (he was backing away and Tim followed him); he’s been going through his own internal battles there, I suspect.

The Aces have fashioned themselves into our super-annoying arch-enemy over the last few seasons (if that weren’t already the case) in both the long and short stuff, so the less credit I pay to them, the better. When we beat them it’s great; when we lose, it really stings.

Anyway, as I was saying before I got distracted by parochial discourse, the win would have been handy because, with wet weather here, there and everywhere causing two-pointer washouts, there’s a real log-jam on the HRV Cup table - plus the stinky Aces are the one team that’s got its nose in front, when it could have been us. After three rounds, here’s how it reads:

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Now in case you missed it, there has actually been some good news afoot. Firstly, yay for our very own Anton Devcich, who is sitting pretty at the very top of the HRV Cup MVP points table. His trusty slow bowling saw him open the attack against the Volts yesterday and take a T20 career-best three wickets; he got two good ones against Auckland too.  See it for yourself right here.

And, yay for the Northern Spirit. At least someone beat Otago. Three times, in fact, across their T20 and one-day comps, which are lumped in together. That’s what I call doing a job properly. It’s also more victories than the Spirit achieved against anyone all last season, and consequently a big form turnaround against the Sparks, who dominated them last summer. Even if the girls did have a wee bit of a fright in the process, with a few magnitude-four rattles and shakes overnight, the games being played at New Zealand Cricket’s base in Lincoln.

Fingers crossed for no more of those tremblings, and toes crossed for better holiday weather for all.