Bounce-back win boosts spirits

He is the first to admit it wasn't text book stuff but Wairarapa senior men's cricket selector Dick Kendall believes his side's come?from?behind win over Wanganui last weekend will stand them in good stead for a tougher assignment again Nelson at Masterton's Park Oval tomorrow and Sunday.
Ideally Kendall would have preferred Wairarapa to have shown far greater resistance to an accurate but hardly alarming Wanganui attack at their first turn at bat.
By capitulating for just 97 runs they made life very difficult for themselves, and what's more it would have been worse but for the positive play of recalled veteran Chris Jefferies in the middle order. His unbeaten 48 basically represented half of his team's total and he never looked in any trouble.
Kendall was making no excuses for his so-called specialist batmen failing to come up with the goods, conceding they made life easy for the Wanganui bowlers by too often flirting with balls outside the off stump and too often being crease bound. "There were a couple of dismissals where you could give all the credit to the bowler, but only a couple," he said. "Generally our technique was poor and we paid the penalty for it."
The poor start to the game meant, of course, that Kendall's desire to have his inexperienced bowling attack operate without the pressure of having few runs to defend didn't happen. But to their credit they were unfazed by the situation, and ensured that Wanganui's first innings tally of 163 wasn't a match winning effort by any means.
Wairarapa's second innings didn't begin a lot better than the first with the first two wickets being down by the time only 24 runs had been scored, but Eddie Hopkins (40), captain John Peters (64) and his deputy Ngatai Walker (70) turned things around, and the overall total of 254 gave Wairarapa a sporting chance of recording an outright win.
What that depended on though was that their bowlers would come to the party again and happily they did exactly that, claiming the last Wanganui wicket with a couple of overs to spare and their opposition still 25 runs short of an outright win themselves.
The asutute leadership of Peters and Walker played a big part in the Wairarapa victory.
With Wanganui surprisingly showing little urgency in their batting display and, in fact, giving the impression a first innings win was deemed acceptable by them they constantly swopped their bowlers around .
At one stage part-timer Henry Cameron was even given couple of overs with the idea of loosening up the batsmen and perhaps tempting them into mistakes and while he was expensive it did have the desired effect with wickets being picked up at the other end.
Selector Kendall was justifiably delighted with the character and resolve shown by his young side over the latter stages of the game, and making the win even more exciting was that it took Wairarapa to a clear lead in their zone of the Hawke Cup qualifying competition.
Nelson though is just the one point behind them, and they were unlucky not to have picked up maximum points in their win over Horowhenua-Kapiti last weekend. Nelson declared their first innings closed at 440-8 while Horowhenua-Kapiti made just 117 in their first "dig" and were 214-9 at stumps in their second when stumps were drawn
"They (Nelson) are obviously a good batting unit and you invariably need to score plenty of runs yourself to keep in the hunt against teams like them," Kendall noted. "We can't afford one bad innings this time round, that's for certain."
A number of changes have been made to the Wairarapa line-up for tomorrow's match, with three of them being forced by the clash with the Gillette Cup national secondary schoolboys finals in Palmerston North which features our own Rathkeale College.
Medium pace bowler Doug Bracewell, middle order batsman Andy Dodd and spin bowler Simon Clinton-Baker are part of that Rathkeale team and Bracewell's absence, in particular, will be felt. He showed maturity way above his years in the Wanganui match, maintaining a consistent line and length even when the pressure was at its greatest. That he was bowling at the game's end when wickets were so desperately required illustrated his considerable value to his team.
With Bracewell out and intended Wellington "import" Jay Newdick ruled ineligible to play for Wairarapa because he has not fulfilled the residency rules of the Hawke Cup competition, Kendall has had to rejig the make-up of his attack.
Fortunately for him Greytown's Shane Mellor, who has performed well for Wairarapa in the past, agreed to make himself available for this weekend's match and he will join a three-pronged pace attack, also including Hayden Spierling and Seth Rance. Those two both impressed with their sharpness against Wanganui, although they will probably need to be more consistent with their line against a Nelson team which will be severe on anything loose.
Jefferies and Cameron Stone are also capable of making decent use of the ball while the shine is still on it, and in Clinton-Baker's absence the spin attack will comprise Ngatai Walker, who did not bowl against Wanganui, and Sam Curtis, who was ruled out of last weekend's fixture through injury.
The positioning of Curtis in the batting order will be interesting. He has done well at opener in the past and it would be no surprise to see him partner Stone at the top of the order with Henry Cameron, who looked out of sorts against Wanganui, dropping down to bat at, say, five or six.
Also interesting will be where two other players who missed the Wanganui game, Aaron Bidlake and wicketkeeper Andy Roberts, are required to bat. Bidlake is a renowned hard hitter who could go in at anywhere from opener to number six while Roberts will probably come in as low as eight.
The preference for Roberts ahead of Will Rist at 'keeper is not through any disappointment in the form of Rist with the gloves last weekend. Rather it is a sign that Kendall sees very little between the two both in 'keeping and batting and he is keen to give Roberts the chance to show his wares.
A likely Wairarapa batting line-up for this weekend is: Curtis, Stone, Peters, Hopkins, Walker, Cameron, Bidlake, Jefferies, Roberts, Mellor, Spierling, Rance.
UMPIRES CUP
Red Star were easy winners over Wairarapa College when matches in the Umpires Cup limited-overs competition continued last weekend, and they will be looking to continue that form when they take on Lansdowne at the Sportsbowl tomorrow. Stars don't have anyone in the rep squad and that is a definite plus for them but, even so, Lansdowne's chances of victory can't be discarded.
Wairarapa College and Greytown will play at the Park Sportsground and if Greytown is anywhere near full strength they should hold too many guns for the students.
Also scheduled to play are Academy and Rathkeale but with the latter in the Gillette Cup finals the date and venue of this game will be decided by arrangement between the two sides.