CRICKET - Northland rue missed chances

Northland put in an unconvincing performance to hand Bay of Plenty the Fergus Hickey Trophy in their two-day match at Cobham Oval over the weekend - just one week out from their Hawke Cup Challenge next week.
Northland captain Brett Hood said the bowling performance on the opening day of the match on Saturday had cost his team dearly, allowing Bay of Plenty to post a good total of 312 all out - Northland fell well short, handing the Bay first-innings points.
"We lacked a bit of discipline in the way we bowled. Certainly we weren't patient, we had a plan but we didn't execute it very well," he said.
"We bowled two lengths and two different lines on both sides of the wicket and let them get away from us, we had a couple of chances we put down as well but in the end we just didn't bowl well."
Given 12 overs to bat on Saturday evening, Northland coughed up three cheap wickets and, at 3/31, were on the back foot, when play started yesterday.
"There were a lot of irresponsible shots if you want to be honest about it, it wasn't about going out there and playing your natural game, it was about being disciplined and playing without risk," Hood said.
Some of the Northland batsman got going, particularly the lower order with the last four partnerships yielding 42, 64, 35 and 40 respectively - evidence that if the batsmen applied themselves, they could score against the Bay of Plenty attack.
Allrounder Mark Tulloch came to the wicket at 50/6 and top-scored with 72. While he and John Child were at the wicket there was a hope that Northland might just get up and win.
The Bay of Plenty bowlers extinguished that hope and, in the end, captain Lorne Howell thought they were probably the difference in the match.
"We bowled good line and good spells where bowlers bowled well in tandem and put the batsmen under real pressure," he said.
He was particularly pleased with his seamers Campbell Wilson (1/28 off 21), Andrew Hoogstraten (2/50) and Andrew Gibbs (2/15).
Wicketkeeper Richard Rice top-scored for the Bay with 70 not out, but Ben Williams (61), James Mitchell (56) and Howell (44) all contributed to the total.
Hood applauded the Bay of Plenty performance, saying they approached the game with the application that Northland had been trying to achieve. Any improvement next week will be helped by the return of three Northern Knights for the Hawke Cup match.
"At this stage we'll have Joe Yovich, Michael Parlane and Brad Wilson back in the team and they're all batsmen so that will help the batting side of things," he said.
Meanwhile, he said, the team would be back in the nets during the week trying to improve the channels they will bowl next week in Napier.