Dodd in national under-19 squad

Rathkeale College all-rounder Andy Dodd has been included in an under-19 winter training squad announced yesterday by New Zealand Cricket.
Dodd, who captained Central Districts under-19 this season and was a prolific run-scorer for them at their national tourney, is one of 19 players who are seen as candidates for the 2008 under-19 World Cup which will be played in Malaysia.
That team will be selected by national age group panel Dayle Hadlee, Dipak Patel, Kaushik Patel and Lance Cairns following the national under-19 championships to be held at Lincoln College in Christchurch in December-January 2007-08.
The full winter training squad is: Corey Anderson (Canterbury), Joe Austin-Smellie (Wellington), Nicholas Beard (Otago), Trent Boult (Northern Districts), Michael Bracewell (Otago), Andy Dodd (Central Districts), Jono Hickey (Northern Districts), Greg Morgan (Auckland), Niranjan Nagaleswaran (Wellington), Sam Noster (Canterbury), Ajaz Patel (Auckland), Bradley Rodden (Otago), Tim Southee (Northern Districts), Ben Sprott (Central Districts), Lii Tugaga (Wellington), Kane Williamson (Northern Districts), George Worker ( Central Districts), Peter Younghusband (Central Districts), Jeet Raval (Auckland).
Meanwhile Dodd was part of a Rathkeale College side which beat Wairarapa College in a Gillette Cup national secondary schoolboys knockout match played at Queen Elizabeth Park oval in Masterton on Monday.
Rathkeale looked in dire straits when an inspired spell of bowling by Joel Macklin had them on the ropes at 23-4 but a 148-run partnership for the fifth wicket between Dean van Deventer (81) and Anton Ross (51) steadied the ship and they were finally out for 205.
Macklin finished with the excellent figures of 5-23 despite not being helped by some shoddy Wairarapa College fielding with at least seven catches being dropped.
Wairarapa College reached just 123 in their innings which the wickets being shared amongst Dodd, van Deventer and Alex Morrison.
The Wairarapa Cricket Association has appointed Chris Cogdale as secretary-treasurer after the resignation of Dick Kendall, who is shifting out of the Masterton area.
Cogdale has been a stalwart of Wairarapa cricket over a long number of years and is currently one of the higher-ranked umpires in the Central Districts region.
The huge cost of operating their senior representative squad- $20,000 this season- is seen by Kendall as a "major headache" for the Wairarapa association, and one that only a revamp of the format for Hawke Cup elimination games will help to solve.
Kendall believes playing the zone matches over a few days at the one venue might be one way of reducing costs.
"We 've had two trips away this season and they really do stretch the financial resources," he said.
Kendall sees the retaining of the promising talent that comes out of local colleges as another problem area for Wairarapa cricket.
Most of the better youngsters tend to move out of the Wairarapa region once they leave secondary school and he wonders whether more use could be made of the Bracewell Academy based at Rathkeale College to keep them here.
"Our junior cricket is in good heart and the development of players at that level is very encouraging but unfortunately we struggle to retain them," he said. "And obviously that impacts on the senior rep side who often don't get the chance to develop those players even more."