Wairarapa all-rounder Seth Rance was a regular starter for the Central Districts squad that won the national under-23 men's cricket tournament in Christchurch last week.
Rance, who has played for the Central Stags at first-class level during the past two seasons, highlighted his performance with an unbeaten 94 in the two
innings encounter against Northern Districts; a knock that played a huge part in his side picking up important first innings points on that occasion.
Attack has always been seen by Rance as the best method of defence when batting and there would be no better example than this particular game where Rance scored 78 of his runs in boundaries, 12 fours and five sixes.
"I middled the first couple of shots and just kept going, it's pretty much the way I always try to bat," Rance recalled.
"If the ball is there to be hit then why not give it a decent crack, you have to keep the bowlers honest."
Rance also notched up a useful 16 off 20 balls in Central District's only loss against Canterbury and, while his eight runs off seven balls in the one-dayer against Auckland might not look anything special, they did help Central Districts get up for a two-wicket victory.
On the bowling front, Rance captured only the four wickets with his medium-fast deliveries but he was just one of many bowlers who struggled to make any sort of impact on pitches which gave little, or no, assistance to them.
"You wouldn't believe how flat and dead the pitches were ... they were absolutely lifeless," Rance said, adding that in one of their games Auckland actually included four spinners in their side and bowled them for practically the whole game. "The spinners loved it but, for the quickies, it was pretty much beyond a joke, there was virtually no bounce at all."
Central Districts topped the points list with 14, followed by Northern Districts 12, Otago 10, Wellington 9, Canterbury 9 and Auckland 2.
With the Central Stags still facing a full programme of four-day matches this season, Rance is "pretty optimistic" of getting at least another couple of games for them but he is also looking forward to turning out for Wairarapa in their important Hawke Cup elimination match against Wanganui on Saturday week. An outright win for Wairarapa there could earn them a Cup challenge.
