CRICKET - Unbeaten Parlane puts Knights to top of table

A bearish 111 not out by Michael Parlane saw the Northern Knights safely home in their second State Shield victory of the week, at Cobham Oval yesterday, sending them to the top of the ladder.
Parlane's knock at nearly a run a ball gave the Knights an easy win over the previous competition leaders, the Central Stags, who scored 236 after being put into bat.
After some frustration with his batsmen in Sunday's tight win over Otago, Knights' captain James Marshall had no complaints with the chase yesterday.
"I was very happy with how our batting went. Bear [Parlane] did a fantastic job with BJ [Watling] at the top of the order and then him and myself had a nice little partnership ... but we were clinical today with the bat."
After replacing opener Hamish Marshall, who only lasted six balls, Parlane's innings was scored in 171 minutes from 112 balls and included eight boundaries.
His partnership with Watling moved the scoring along when rain threatened, raising the possibility of the Duckworth-Lewis system to find a winner. But by the time the players left the field after a second sustained period of rain, after the 32nd over, Marshall and Parlane had made the game's result fairly certain by taking the score to 188/2.
The rain cleared and Marshall sacrificed his wicket chasing the bonus point win. Pinch hitter Peter McGlashion also perished and Kane Williamson joined Parlane at the wicket to see the side safely to the win in 41.4 overs.
Parlane's success was well received by those who stayed at the ground, the Maungakaramea player having lost none of his popularity after a lengthy spell playing for Wellington.
Marshall said the win was set up by another very good bowling effort - particularly by Brent Arnel, who was the other outstanding player of the day with 4/26 off 8.2 overs.
"We did well with the ball after they got off to a flyer but we contained them by taking wickets, particularly Brent Arnel, and then Bucko (Bruce Martin) and Kane Williamson again did a really good job through that middle section to pull them back," he said.
Central's Peter Ingram was brutal in the early overs and reached 46 off 35 balls before Arnel dismissed him. He also claimed the wicket of Central top-scorer Brendon Diamante for 56 in his second spell.
Despite the good performance, batsmen and bowlers will have to compete for places in the side for Saturday's match against Wellington at the Basin Reserve.
Black Caps Tim Southee and Daniel Flynn will be back but the availability of Daniel Vettori was not known last night.
"I'm not sure if Dan'll be back. It'd be great if he is but there's a possibility that New Zealand Cricket will pull him," he said.
"It's going to be hard for the players because someone's going to miss out. We're going to take a big squad down to Wellington and we'll assess things when we get down there," he said. "It's tough but it's nice to have that depth in the squad ... so we're pretty happy with how things are going in the competition right now."