CRICKET - Hood piles on the agony for his old side Kaipara

A combination of rain and Maungakaramea wicketkeeper-batsman Brett Hood denied Kaipara Flats the Northland one-day cricket title yesterday.
Hood steadied the ship with an unbeaten 43 runs after his side's chase looked in all sorts of trouble at 18/3.
The former Kaipara Flats player enjoyed the challenge of facing his old club and batting on the fast-paced Cobham Oval wicket and scored freely, while the wickets continued to fall around him.
Tauseef Satti dismissed Dean Child, Mark Southee and Mark Child in his opening spell to finish with 3/13 from seven overs, when the players were forced off the park by persistent light rain after 27 overs had been completed in the Maungakaramea chase.
At that stage Kaipara, who had been unbeaten in the competition through the round-robin stages, had got into the tail of the batting. Jason Morgan was on 11 not out at the other end as Maungakaramea reached 110/6.
Hood was likely to be the key in the eventual success or failure of the chase but in the end it was Maungakaramea's better run rate that got them home.
Kaipara were disappointed with their batting effort although, to be fair, Maungakaramea were responsible for reining them in after a good start.
They scored 173 after finally being dismissed on the final ball of the 50th over, with opener Brad Wilson on 51 once again top-scoring.
Satti scored 20, with Ben Thomson scoring 21 and Kyran Dill added 24 in the middle order, but it was a fine bit of fielding that undid them.
Jake Phillips, batting up the order after scoring 55 against Maungakaramea the previous day in the 55-over competition, was run out before scoring by Paul Thornton, and his departure signalled the end of the visiting team's chances of putting together a big score.
The wickets were all shared around by Maungakaramea, with Charlie Hopkins the only player to take two wickets. Thornton also bowled well with 1/19 off six overs, while Chris Newson was more expensive with 1/27 off seven but he did claim the valuable scalp of Wilson, who was caught behind.
As rain set in, Maungakaramea were awarded Northland Cricket's one-day title with Kaipara Flats having to settle for second, after earlier winning the Twenty20 title.