Devcich spearheads Waikato victory as Northland slump

Waikato's Anton Devcich rediscovered his batting form in the limited over match against Northland by scoring a century to help his side to victory.
Devcich has been in and out of the Northern Districts first class side this season after showing inconsistent form with the bat, but on Sunday he led his provincial side to a very good limited over score of 290/7 - contributing 126 at number-three - before he was trapped lbw by Richard Atkins.
With Michael Satner taking an excellent 5-27, Northland slumped to their second loss in two weeks managing only 190 in reply with skipper Jake Phillips saying one of the top order needed to dig in and bat as Devcich did.
"What we really needed was one of the several batsmen who got starts to go on to score 70-80 and that might have been good enough to get us close to their score," he said.
A good Hamilton line-up - many of whom were in the team that narrowly defeated Northland in a two-day match in December - was bolstered by the use of some fringe first-class players like Devcich and Anurag Verma.
"It would be great if we had the use of some of our first-class players but they are a bit more established in the Knights," Phillips reflected.
The toss was an important factor in the match and Northland struggled early to contain the scoring of the Hamilton top order, who got their side off to a flying start.
"It was a very good batting wicket that took more turn as the day wore on, but that's no excuse for our batting, we should have done better," Phillips said.
After Rhys Farrand was run out with the score on 19, Ben Williams joined him at the crease but he was dismissed with the score on 49 - along with Henry Cooper and Atkins - a blow from which Northland never recovered.
The middle order all contributed, with Chris Page top-scoring with 43 but it was too little, too late and Northland were dismissed in the 42nd over of their chase, 101 runs short of victory.
The side spent the hottest part of the day in the field and on the bumpy Galloway Park outfield, fielding was not easy but it was the batting display that most disappointed coach and selector Ewen Thompson.
"We're bowling and fielding well but our batting is letting us down.
"We're guilty of relying on a couple of guys to produce the runs and when they don't, we're in trouble," he said. The side's only remaining fixture this season is a match against Counties-Manukau on February 19 and Phillips said the team will want to make up for lost ground by playing well in that match.