Cricket: Spinner relishes Hawke Cup chance

HIGH FIVES: Giliam Christoffel Pretorius will make his Bay senior men's rep debut tomorrow in Napier. PHOTO/FILE

It's a ginger step but, nonetheless, in the desired direction of a cricketing journey that will take greater meaning for Giliam Christoffel Pretorius tomorrow.

The Ruahine Motors Central Hawke's Bay cricketer from South Africa will make his debut in the crucial zone 2-qualifying Furlong Cup match for Pay Excellence Hawke's Bay senior men's representative team in a bid to challenge for the Hawke Cup, the symbol of minor association supremacy.

It's no secret that the bloke from Pretoria, known in the Bay scene as "GC", has been waiting for this moment in eventually realising the dream of playing for the Devon Hotel Central Districts Stags or even the Black Caps.

"The reason he got the opportunity is because Ajaz Patel has been called back into the Stags with Marty Kain out with a side strain," says Bay coach Colin Schaw before the game starts at 10.30am at Nelson Park.

The 24-year-old, right-arm leg spinner is no stranger to his Bay teammates, having conducted fitness training for them sporadically throughout this summer.

He played in the Bay's warm-up game against Wairarapa here last weekend, impressing Schaw with his three wickets.

"I thought I had to bring in another spinner with Ajaz not there," he says of Patel who has consistently taken frugal wickets but has found himself on the bench of the Henrich Malan-coached Stags because Kain is the No 1 tweaker in the white-ball formats.

"We want to take 20 wickets in this game [v Taranaki] for an outright win."

Schaw says Jayden Lennox is out of the mix due to the demands of tertiary studies and working in Auckland during the break.

Seamer Blair Tickner also is in the CD mix for the Ford Trophy one-day match against Canterbury Kings in Christchurch tomorrow.

Not having claimed an outright victory away over Wairarapa before Christmas makes it imperative for the Bay to come away with maximum points before the litmus test against a bullish Michael Mason-coached Manawatu.

The Jacob Smith-captained Bay are aware of how Taranaki can easily become a banana skin should they start looking too far ahead of tomorrow.

For Schaw, it'll be obligatory for his men to take their batting up to another threshold.

"Angus [Schaw] got 80 odd not out and Indy [Indika Senarathne] comes in fresh from CD to see off the new ball to put up a big score," he says.

The Phil Stoyanoff-prepared wicket, he suspects, will have a little bit of greenish tinge on it "to get something out of it".

With the pace battery humming so far this summer he expects the spinners of Angus Schaw and Pretorius to keep proceedings pretty terse for the visiting batsmen.

"Jake [Smith] is back into his bowling so that gives us another dimension to the situation," says the senior Schaw.

The biggest factor for them leading up to this week up has been their catching.

"We've only put one down throughout the Hawke Cup campaign."

BOTH TEAMS

Pay Excellence HAWKE'S BAY: Jacob Smith (c), Matt Edmondson, Rupert Young, Indika Senarathne, Angus Schaw, Callum Hewetson, Scott Schaw (wkt), GC Pretorius, Kurt Richards, Charlie Robson, Ben Stoyanoff, Liam Dudding.
Coach: Colin Schaw.

Revital Fertilisers TARANAKI: Mattie Thomas (c), Dean Robinson, Jason Dombroski, James McDougall, Liam Muggeridge, Phil Barraclough, Ryan Watson, Tom McDougall, Sam Fastier, Taylor Williams, Jordie Barrett, Jackson Braddock-Pajo (wk).