The Pink Report

Thinking Big

All afternoon, I kept looking at the scoreboard. I kept photographing the scoreboard. I had some more coffee and rubbed my eyes, but no, it really wasn’t a trick of the light. Those numbers were beaming bright in the afternoon sun. On the country’s biggest first-class ground, BJ Watling and Brad Wilson were calmly racking up a record-setting, match-winning opening partnership that will be remembered as one of the team’s all-time special days.

There’s a world of difference between performing when it counts and recording your statistical best when the game is already gone or counts for nothing. Pressure plays odd games with your head and what sets BJ and Brad’s powerful performance apart is not just its statistical weight - their 274-run opening stand smashing the 16-year-old Northern Districts first-class record against any team - but all the circumstances that fed into it.

For starters, it’s been an annoying little summer for the top order unit until now. The guys have had a few starts, a fair few nightmares and occasionally trucked on for a good one. Brad had that 91 in the rounds before Christmas, then the unbeaten second innings century at Colin Maiden heading into this game. Daniel Flynn cracked 131 against the Stags and had a ton in the one-day comp, but in between has had a gutsful of holing out when he’s striking the ball so well. BJ got consistent starts in the one-dayers before posting his 113 not out, and suffered a bittersweet first-class 99 against the Stags.

But overall there’s been a cumulative sense of having missed out when the tracks (especially around the home traps, and on the Patumahoe roads of Auckland and Welly) have been absolute gifts for batting - and consequently there’s been routine frustration at not putting together seriously damaging top order partnerships.

Maybe there’s been a leprechaun hitching a lift in the guys’ kit bags, but if that was the problem then he’s just had his green butt kicked out of the home dressing room. 385/1. 385/1. It just sounds so nice when you say it!

“Obviously getting 373 on a tired, day four wicket was a big ask, so we were very pleased with how it turned out,” Brad summed up at the end of the day on which both he and BJ struck their highest first-class scores - 151 and 164 not out respectively. “Basically we started the morning wanting two good sessions batting. We wanted to be nice and positive and then to see where we were at at tea. So the plan was simple - ‘get out there and be positive’ - and worked well.”

“The previous night we’d talked about doing things well, but needing to do it for longer,” his opening partner BJ added. “It was that basic. We knew the track would be good for batting and we really had to cash in this time. We were gutted as a batting unit to get bowled out for 235 in the first innings on a track like that, so to finish it off properly was a good confidence booster.”

Now your keen mind will detect that they’re a couple of understated fellows at the best of times and, to be horribly honest, the first few days had been not just gutting, but cardinally embarrassing. Playing on their low, slow “Cobham Road” home for the last time this season, they’d chosen to bowl first, but after a smidgen of early movement for the pace attack that got rid of Cameron Merchant and Grant Elliott, the visiting Wellingtonians simply settled into accrual mode on a long, slow afternoon.

Elliott told me he had intended to bat had he won the toss, so despite his own misfortune he would have been pleased enough for the team to be 227/5 at stumps and the following day his late middle order pushed it out to 402. The last wicket to fall? Jeetan Patel, always a pugnacious, yappy little player out there, caught on 99. It was like a single grain of sugar on a sour day.

With four teams bunched tightly in the middle of the Plunket Shield points table, both teams really wanted those two first innings points. Enter the pressure. Or the leprechaun. Or whatever you want to blame. Brad fell almost immediately to Mark “Dizzy” Gillespie, Andy McKay got Daniel Flynn soon after.

BJ, on whose shoulders it all fell once more, misjudged one from Patel to be caught behind just shy of his half-ton. At least we could raise a smile at the shot of the day - when James Marshall hooked one that, with quite expert placement, flew straight through the open ranchslider of the Knights’ dressing room (which is otherwise a Bella Homes showhome) and landed in the sink!

The Marshall twins saw the team through to 142/3 at stumps, leaving 266 more runs to find for a first-innings lead on day three. But it wasn’t to be - and meantime the Aces’ dramatic capitulation down south (bowled out for a disgraceful 46, meaning the Volts were about to bag eight points and vault ahead of the Knights into second place on the table) had just seriously upped the points pressure.

Dismissing the Knights with 171 runs to spare, the Firebirds got haughtier still and declared 384 ahead after opener Stephen Murdoch had got his hundred in the second innings. That left the Knights a day and a bit to try to take the last six points on offer - the Firebirds obviously assuming that the only cracks that would appear on the last day would be in the ND batting order once more.

So man, I enjoyed watching that last day. The Firebirds began to yap less and less out there as the boundaries blew through their attacking fields. It was a direct correlation: the more that opening stand swelled, the less they had to say.

BJ felt ‘in’ quite early on in the morning session, which had started half an hour early to make up time from bad light the previous arvo. “I got a couple out of the middle and I was away - there was not much in it for the bowlers. McKay charged in, he was at me, “Dizzy” as well. They were the pick of the bowlers, but they didn't get it to reverse or tail as much as I thought it might, so that was a relief. They weren’t as threatening as they might have been and the heads started to drop. That’s what happens when you get a partnership like that against you. I mean, I know what it feels like myself in the field.”

Only much later, when BJ climbed into the 90s, did his nerves start jumping around. He confided in Brad that he was feeling it, having got that gut-wrenching 99 in his previous match at Cobham. Their hearts leapt up to their throats when, on 96, he suddenly paddled a chance to Patel, fielding in close. But after having watched the opening duo make 208 runs - a long time with nothing much to do, Patel wasn’t ready for it and dropped the lone chance.

“It was amazing how I felt the nerves again, for the first time in three hours, when that happened,” BJ reflected afterwards. But before long he was lifting his Kookaburra to acknowledge his sixth first-class century. “Thank God for that,” he whispered to Brad.

By then they’d already knocked off the Northern Districts opening record, beating the milestone set by Michael Parlane (who was watching from the sidelines) and Matthew Bell (whose father Gary, Northland Cricket’s CEO, was likewise watching with interest) back in the summer of 1994/95. That was in New Plymouth, a weather-affected draw in which the rain had seeped under the covers. But even then it had seemed a “light” record that didn’t stack up so well against the other associations’ benchmarks.

The boys were well aware of the history. “It was good to finally break that and put that kind of score up for the opening wicket,” said BJ. “I felt it was a decent one at last - the old record just didn't seem decent enough.”

On a more personal level, BJ was also thinking to himself that he had a golden opportunity here to carry on and beat his own best mark, 153 - set in early 2000, his second season and very first hundred for ND. Brad’s high score had meanwhile been stuck on 109 from two years back.

Brad: “I knew once I got to hundred that I really wanted to kick on and get a decent hundred. It’s something that I haven’t thought enough about out there in the past. You get to your hundred, another weight goes off your shoulders and it’s quite easy to relax and let your guard down - it’s why so many people get out not long after their century. It’s something I’ve experienced and now learned.”

He had initially been the more aggressive in the chase, sucking on the Carboshotz every break on a day that was hotting up in more ways than one. They’d caned the first 100 runs of the day in as many minutes, Brad reaching his hundred just after lunch, off 158 balls (the anticipation of caterer Lou Hart’s legendary fishcakes have that kind of effect, mind you).

“Once I got to my 50 I felt 'in' and once I got to 120, then I felt real good. BJ was good to bat with. We have a pretty good understanding of each other’s games and stay pretty relaxed. That’s key for me - to stay relaxed out there. I need time to switch off in middle. It’s not for everyone - some guys need to be pumped - but BJ and I both like to stay calm, so we're a good combination.”

“The way Brad played was outstanding,” BJ added. “He played with good intent, really took it to the bowlers and made it easier for me to play my game. We would have a bit of a laugh and could turn off in the middle, to relax - and to stay relaxed in my mind is very important for me. I know that as soon as I tense up, it’s not the state I want to be in to bat well.”

After batting for four and three-quarter hours, Brad eventually miscued one off McKay. The partnership was broken on 274 in the middle session, but by now the match was firmly back in the Knights’ hands. Now BJ stepped it up, batting with an equally confident Hamish Marshall who chimed in with a snappy unbeaten fifty.

“I was just really keen to finish the game off and make sure it was a big victory for us,” BJ says. “It was a big chase, 384. That’s what kept me going all day: I really wanted to finish it off. It got hot in that last hour, but the runs kept flowing and it just felt good out there. It is good beating the Firebirds, too. They’ve beaten us a lot since I started playing and we've had a bit of a rot down at the Basin lately, so it’s always good to get one over them and watch their bottom lips start hitting the ground.”

It will have stung Wellington hard that the Knights not only knocked off the target, but ultimately did so with plenty of time to spare. The Firebirds underestimated them badly. Just to rub it in - and so fittingly, BJ delivered the killer blow by sweeping a massive six off Patel.

Brad, who also scored his 2000th run for Northern Districts in the innings, is now sitting top of the Plunket Shield batting aggregates for all teams this summer with 584 runs at 58.40. BJ is the second Knight on that chart, in ninth spot overall with 389 runs and a heavyweight average of 77.80. But as nice as it is to knock off milestones and pump up your own stats, what matters most to the guys is winning. Those six points for the outright were the real prize, and it means the Knights are now just a shade behind early leaders the Stags on the Plunket points table, which now looks like this with just four rounds to go: 

* Includes three points awarded for the cancellation of the fifth round match after the Christchurch earthquake.

That’s why it didn’t surprise me that the pads had barely been unbuckled on the Big Day Out when thoughts turned to the next round. The Knights will surely be the favourites against the oddly lacklustre Aces - on another home road in Hamilton. And, despite the physical demands of the day four deeds at Cobham and not too much recovery time after driving south that very night, the short break between the rescheduled rounds may work in favour of the Knights' top order as they carry this winning feeling onto a similar style of track.

Best of all, they’re hungry for more. Even as he was still digesting his epic innings, Brad was sanguine as he put it into context. He was acutely aware that with the good had come the bad - a failure on both a personal and team level in the first innings - and that both his hundreds in the last fortnight had come from the second dig.

“I still think we’re searching for that good first innings batting performance. We’re doing it in the second innings, but we have not quite got it together at the moment when we set out. Why? It’s so hard to put your finger on something like that, but it will just take a guy to put his hand up and lead the way. So hopefully we will take confidence out of this innings and translate it into our next innings - because often that's when you set up a good win.”

Meantime, there’s just one word to sum up an unforgettable day’s effort in Whangarei: congratulations!

BJ Watling hits a 6 to win the game for the Knights in Whangarei.

Image Copyright to Margot Butcher

***

Just before I go enjoy a rare summer weekend off - as I write, Hamilton is in the midst of its Hawke Shield challenge in Blenheim, where the hosts (including former All Black Leon MacDonald, who played age-group cricket for Central in his youth, and former Stag Brendon Diamanti) were in trouble from day one. Hamilton built a healthy lead of 181 after dismissing Marlborough for just 144, Joe Walker picking up 6-33 off 15 and Anton Devcich 2-24 off 11.

Anton then notched up 70 with bat, assisted by fellow Northern Knight and captain Keir Battley who top-scored with 81. With first-innings rites in the bag, it looks like the coveted Hawke Cup could shortly be on the way north!