Academy ruling to be challenged

Wairarapa will be contesting a ruling from New Zealand Cricket which limits the number of Bracewell Academy players they can include in their senior representative side.
Four Academy players ? David Irvine, Jamie Perkins, Matt Young and Richard Lewis- ? were part of the Wairarapa line-up which lost outright to Nelson last weekend but only two ? Irvine and Young_? will be playing against Hawke's Bay in Napier this weekend.
Player-coach Robin James said the NZC ruling was received by Wairarapa on Monday and indicated they could play just one Academy player per game if they did not fulfil residential qualifications.
Perkins, Young and Lewis are all in that category but Irvine, who holds a New Zealand passport, is not affected.
So with medium pace bowler Lewis still suffering from the side strain which limited his involvement in the Nelson game either wicketkeeper-batsman Perkins or spin bowler Young had to miss out this weekend, and the unlucky one is Perkins.
James said the NZC ruling would be contested on the basis that the Academy players were not "imports" in the sense they were all playing their club cricket in Wairarapa, and they were not being paid for their services.
"These are players who have come from places like Britain to improve their cricket and we should be encouraging them to play at representative level," he said. "They are amateurs, just like everybody else."
The loss of Perkins and the non-availability of Lewis means two vacancies were available in the Wairarapa line-up for the Hawke's Bay game from that which performed co creditably in defeat against Nelson and these have gone to a couple of old hands, Lansdowne's John Hannam and Red Star's Carwyn Caffell.
Hannam is expected to open the batting with his Lansdowne club-mate Sam Curtis, and in Perkins's absence could also share the wicket-keeping duties with Greytown middle order batsman Paul Lyttle.
James described Hannam as an "old school" type of batsman whose main assets were grit and determination, plus a willingness to go for his shots. "It won't matter who the bowlers are, he will be looking to dominate them," he said.
Caffell, one of the leading wicket-takers on the club scene for some seasons now, will be expected to do a similar job to Lewis, restricting runs with consistent line and length medium pace bowling. "He's been there before and knows what's expected of him," James said.
While conceding that Hawke's Bay will start favourites in what is another Hawke Cup elimination match James said Wairarapa did well enough against Nelson to give themselves every chance of an upset win.
"There was just one period early in the second day when they (Nelson) took control, otherwise we competed strongly in every department," he said. "The general feeling in the team is that we couldn't have done a lot more so while the result was disappointing it wont all bad by any means."