Outright wins possible

Providing the weather man does not intervene outright wins could be the order of the day when first round matches in the Wairarapa Cricket Association's Bidwell Cup competition draw to a close tomorrow.
Red Star is in a strong position to pick up maximum points against Greytown at Greytown as is Lansdowne in their encounter with Rathkeale College at Rathkeale and while the Academy v Wairarapa College game is more evenly poised Academy will be fancying their chances of doing the business there.
Greytown has been Red Star's "bogey" team for some seasons now but the southerners will have to produce something special with the ball in the early stages of tomorrow's play if they are to revive their fortunes.
It's a challenge which should bring out the best in their new ball bowlers Seth Rance and Hayden Spierling, who took seven wickets between them last weekend .
They are capable of extracting enough bounce from the most placid of pitches to worry any batsmen.
Opener Daniel Stonely promises to be a key part of the Red Star batting effort. He might have only scored nine runs in 19 overs in his team's second innings last weekend but by keeping his wicket intact he allowed Troy Burling to swing the willow with telling effect at the other end.
Burling, fired by the fact he wasn't available for the second day, raced through to 43 before being dismissed and by stumps Red Star were in the comfortable position of having a 131-lead with nine second innings wickets still to fall.
If Stonely can show the same persistence tomorrow and if other specialist batsmen like Brad Edwards and Joe Hull lend him solid support then Red Star should be able to increase their advantage to a point where a declaration can be made based on how long they believe it will take to dismiss Greytown a second time.
And if that's the case the next challenge for Greytown will be to show a more responsible approach to their batting than they did last weekend when they were all out for a paltry 70 in their first innings.
From all accounts it was pretty much a case of all-out attack with a number of "soft" dismissals occurring as a consequence.
Lansdowne will resume their match with Rathkeale with a 38-run lead and still seven second innings wickets in hand.
Here too then the emphasis for one team, in this case Lansdowne, will be on scoring enough runs in the first session of play to absolutely turn the screws on their opposition while for Rathkeale the objective will be grab those remaining seven wickets for little cost, thereby creating the possibility of picking up outright points themselves.
That talented all-rounder Dean van Deventer will play a huge hand in Rathkeale's fortunes can almost be taken for granted.
He has already shown his skill with the bat by making 63 of their 150 runs in their first innings and if Rathkeale are to make early inroads with the ball tomorrow you'd expect it to be medium pacer van Deventer leading the way there as well.
Academy are unquestionably the in-form team of Wairarapa club cricket at the present time but whether they can pick up maximum points in their match with Wairarapa College at Rathkeale is open to debate.
After scoring 230 in their first innings thanks in the main to a knock of 71 by the consistent Fran Sennemore, Academy had Wairarapa College 104-4 in reply when stumps where drawn last Saturday
On the face of it then Academy were in the box seat but the students could take confidence from the fact they had scored at better than five runs an over and that the hard hitting Robbie Anderson was unbeaten on 26
Anderson will be a key scalp for Academy early in tomorrow's action as given another hour at the wicket he would have Wairarapa College closing in on first innings points at a rapid rate of knots.
But, conversely, if he falls within the first few overs Academy's hopes of wrapping up the Wairarapa College first innings in time for them to score enough runs in their second innings to still push on for an outright win will be considerably enhanced.