The Pink Report

Straight Old Line

The crazy little win over the Auckland Aces on Sunday was a great lesson in never giving in.

I have to admit that for most of the match, I thought the fellas had blown it. The Aces have a straightforward bowling plan based around internationals Kyle Mills and Daryl Tuffey, with Michael Bates, Andre Adams and Roneel Hira tying things down through the middle. Handy bowlers all of them (I’m still trying to figure out why Bates isn’t in the World Cup squad of 30), but after a decent first 10 overs that saw BJ Watling and Daniel Flynn get starts with a 50-run partnership, things fell apart until at times it felt like you were watching a test match, not a peppy one-dayer.

Not for the first time this season, it was one of those games where the batters came out of it owing the bowlers a debt. It’s no news that Graeme Aldridge is a huge asset with the ball - he’s Mister Consistent, game after game, season upon season, and officially ranked the country’s most valuable player in all domestic cricket right now. He added to that on Sunday by rescuing the innings with his highest one-day score, 47 off 50 balls. His previous high was 36, at an average just over 16, but that didn’t stop him smacking Daryl Tuffey over his head for six. And after lunch, there he was as usual, zeroing in on his channels to notch up 130 one-day wickets - a new Northern Districts record.

Batting at the other end was that other invaluable late-order soldier, Bradley Scott. I shouldn’t have laughed, really I shouldn’t, but I couldn’t help myself as Bradley swung and swatted at ball after ball. That ball just wasn’t behaving itself and connecting. Finally he got one - hooked Bates for six, no less. Never give in. The 50 partnership between Bradley and “G” Aldridge saw the Knights past the 200 mark, and later that swatted six turned out to be essential to victory when Bradley took the final wicket in the Aces’ innings with only two runs left in the bank.

This is Bradley’s 10th year at this level of the game and, like “G”, his experience tells. They have 161 one-day matches between them. His economy rate is consistently up there with the best. It reflects his composure under pressure, his accuracy when it comes to pushing the ball up into the batsman’s boots, as well as his unusual and difficult angle of delivery - detouring round the wicket, batters find the left-armer tough to slog so long as he keeps pushing it up.

Mopping up on Sunday, three wickets for 37, at a tidy 3.96 economy rate, secured not just the win, but Bradley’s personal best one-day figures for the Knights - plus those determined 19 runs were his highest score for the side, too. Admittedly there’s still a little catch-up to do when you throw in his long service record at Otago (his top one-day hauls there were four for 63 with the ball and 44 with the bat).

Bradley moved up to Northern Districts from Otago in 2008 after his wife Jennie got a teaching job in Hamilton, and a nice touch on Sunday was it happened to be the first time since then that Roly, his Otago stalwart father, had seen Bradley play in Northern Districts colours. The Reverend Roly Scott is a baptist minister and had flown up to Auckland from Dunedin to officiate at a wedding that weekend. Number one support team Jennie and little daughter Maia were at Colin Maiden to enjoy the jailbreaking win, too.

With the Auckland run rate picking up, Bradley freely admits he thought the Aces had all the cards until Graeme Aldridge finally tempted Auckland number three Anaru Kitchen into a lash, Brad Wilson taking the catch to shut him up for 58. It was the pivotal wicket. There was more pressure on the Aces after that, and the Knights were in with a sniff of a sniff.

“People talk about batting partnerships and you definitely have bowling partnerships as well,” Bradley says. “I guess that’s our role in the team, to close out a game - and with someone like G looking after the other end, I have that trust that he has the skills to pull it off. I don’t have to worry about it; I just have to worry about doing my bit, which is good.

“I thought G was outstanding on Sunday, a real man of the match performance. He tends to be a guy who walks the walk, as opposed to talking the talk. That said, if you’re near him in the field, he will come over and talk to you about your options and your fielding stuff and it’s good to bounce those things off another bowler. We use Pete quite a bit as well; obviously as the keeper he has a good view of what we’re trying to do.”

Each season the Knights vote in four players to form the team’s leadership group, people who best represent the team values. Graeme Aldridge is one of them.

“He’s a real senior player in our group,” says Bradley. “Within our team culture, everyone looks to try and help each other out. There’s not much selfishness in terms to trying to help each other’s individual games. He’s part of that, and for instance I also talk to Trent Boult a little bit about bowling as a fellow left-armer. We’re a wee bit different because Trent swings the ball at pace quite a bit whereas I’m more of a seamer, but sometimes you see something that they haven’t, so we offer ourselves as a resource. I really enjoy watching Trent when he’s running in firing on all cylinders, trying to intimidate batsmen.”

That said, I suspect Bradley might be a wee bit too naturally self-effacing to recognise that his dependability is part of G’s success, too. Look at their results this season though and the synergy between the right- and left-armer stands out. And then they go out and knock off a few runs, too, in the first real close one of the season.  

So the Yahoo!Xtra Knights have started their defence successfully, four points on the board, albeit by a scrape. This Wednesday they meet the Stags in Palmerston North, and the word is that conditions there are good. But what the team really needs now is a solid batting performance. And, after oscillating between big wins and big losses in the HRV Cup, it wouldn’t hurt to have another tough battle at Fitzherbert Park, to practise those fighting qualities. The Stags have the talent to deliver on that front: should be a good one.