A cricket mystery befalls the Hawke's Bay team

Game over for Jayden Lennox - clean-bowled, top scorer in the second innings, but the last act in Hawke's Bay's 2021-2022 Hawke Cup era. Photo / Paul Taylor

There can be few tougher ways of getting back on the horse than having had your team lose a key cricket match by more than an innings and being skittled for less than 100 at each bat.

But as daunting as it may seem, Hawke's Bay cricket selector-coach Christie van Dyk is hopeful he and the team might be able to turn it around in the single week between a hammering in defence of national minor associations challenge trophy the Hawke Cup last weekend, and playing a Furlong Cup Central Districts minor associations match on Saturday and Sunday.

He's named all but the same team challengers Canterbury Country dismissed for 97 in the first innings and 93 in the second, shedding just wicketkeeper Scott Schaw, who is unavailable, and 12th man James Rawnsley, who captains Hawke's Bay Under 19 on Sunday.

Van Dyk wasn't about to dabble with one of sport's unanswerables – why 11 men, 11 emotions, 22 arms and 22 legs should all fail at the same time - telling his team to go away, think about it, bring it back to training, and to put all the good stuff together back on Nelson Park again.

"Let's hope we can fix it," he said ahead of a game that will mark captain Angus Schaw's 100th Senior A team appearance for Hawke's Bay.

The only hint is that Hawke's Bay got off on the wrong foot, losing the toss and batting first, for the first time in the five matches of the Hawke's Bay defence era that began with a win by an innings over North Otago in Oamaru in February, 2021.

In fine weather, the opening pair of Jono Whitley and Jack Boyle was just starting to settle in when Whitley was gone at 16 - but that was to be the second-biggest partnership of the two innings, surpassed only by their 23 in the second innings, after Canterbury Country had scored 219 and set a first target of 121 to make them bat again.

Only Boyle, Schaw and Schaw hit double figures in the first dig, and only Whitley, Boyle, Will Clark and Jayden Lennox did so in the second, when the 14 extras were beaten only by Lennox's 16, batting at No 9.

The match ended with Canterbury Country winning by an innings and 29 runs.

Hawke's Bay hadn't had much preparation, but it had had a match a week earlier, and batted promisingly, in a Furlong Cup first round match against Manawatū. It was the first match of the season for the challengers.

Van Dyk says that while the loss meant as many as five weekends involving 15 days of cricket have been freed up for the team - that had been facing Hawke's Bay's biggest-ever season of representative cricket - there was no lack of motivation.

"They all wanted to keep hold of the cup," he said.

If there was any consolation, other than the match did get to the third day, it was that "it happens" and "that's cricket", to quote a couple of cricket clichés.

When Hawke's Bay started the era in February 2021, it was by rolling holder North Otago for 145 and 120 and winning by an innings and 52 runs.

Double dismissals at under 100 are not fond cricketing memories, but in 145 years of international test cricket, it has happened 17 times – bottom-billing going to South Africa, which in 1888, against England, and 1932, against Australia, was dismissed in each innings for less than 50.

The most recent pair of innings under 100 was Zimbabwe's capitulation against New Zealand in Harare in 2005.

In New Zealand, Wellington was all out for under 100 in each innings against Canterbury just last month, for the lowest match aggregate in Plunket Shield first-class cricket in over a century.

The Pay Excellence Hawke's Bay cricket team for the weekend's Furlong Cup match is: Jono Whitley, Jack Boyle, William Clark, Dominic Thompson, Angus Schaw (captain), Brett Johnson, Todd Watson, Brayden Hill (wicketkeeper), Toby Findlay, Jayden Lennox, Liam Dudding, and Ben Stoyanoff.

Meanwhile, the Hawke's Bay women's team has its first Mike Shrimpton Trophy match of the season on Saturday against Nelson in Palmerston North, and Canterbury Country is quickly into its Hawke Cup era, with the first defence against Southland in Rangiora from Friday to Saturday (November 11-13).