Cricket: Kneebone's dismissal proves bad omen

Brad Kneebone was just one short of a century. Photo / File

Brad Kneebone's dismissal, one run short of his century, proved to be a bad omen for Northland as they slumped to their fourth successive opening round loss at the Brian Dunning Memorial One Day competition in Taupo.

Kneebone and Ben Hyde (45) put together a good opening partnership of 126 after Northland won the toss on Sunday. Henry Cooper (62) and Tyler Lortan (35no) also came to the party with the bat to see Northland through to a good score of 278/4 in their 50 overs.

The score should have been enough but their bowling and fielding simply weren't good enough to contain a good Bay of Plenty batting line-up and the home side's Brett Hampton smacked Lortan for six to reach 284/5 with nine balls to spare.

The team's coach and head selector, Stephen Cunis, said the loss didn't stem from a lack of effort but rather a lack of polish with the ball against a good Bay of Plenty batting line-up.

"We didn't quite get it right, our concentration wasn't where it should have been and we bowled four or five good balls in an over but the other one or two were poor balls and easily hit for four," he said.

The result was hard to take for Cunis, who desperately wanted to get a win in their first match to break the run of first round losses.

"At least we didn't play badly, the Bay of Plenty just played a little bit better than us, they have four or five guys in their top order who have played for Northern Districts or NDA so we were under no illusions how tough it would be," Cunis said.

Northland are without three of their most experienced players with James Marshall, Joey Yovich and Brad Wilson all unavailable for the annual three-day Northern Districts tournament at Owen Delaney Park.

The team can at least be happy that Hamilton were also defeated on Sunday by Counties Manukau, while Waikato Valley defeated Poverty Bay in the other match. Yesterday, Northland played Waikato Valley and today they take on Poverty Bay.