Veteran get call to boost thin ranks

Experienced allrounder Robin James has been called into the Wairarapa senior men's cricket squad for their Hawke Cup elimination match with Manawatu at Queen Elizabeth Park Oval in Masterton this weekend.
James, a fine performer with both bat and ball on the representative scene over a long number of years, initially made himself unavailable for this season's campaign but a dire shortage of bowlers has led to selector Mark Brown persuading him to have a change of heart.
Brown found himself without star paceman Seth Rance, who will be on the duty with the Stags in their national Twenty20 final against Auckland in New Plymouth on Sunday, fellow Greytown quickie Hayden Spierling, who has a prior commitment, and reliable medium pacer Daniel Ingham, who is sidelined with an achilles injury.
Therefore there was little alternative but to encourage James, who has been playing regularly for Lansdowne at club level, to have a rethink and Brown was delighted with his positive response.
"He (James) is still one of the best bowlers around and you can always be confident he will do a decent job," Brown said.
The possibility is James will actually open the bowling for Wairarapa with Dean van Deventer, although his Lansdowne team-mate Brock Price is another contender to take the new ball. A fourth seamer in the squad is Dane Buchanan while the spinning duties are likely to be shared between skipper Sam Curtis and Steve Coleman.
In the batting department the top-order players are likely to be Curtis, Price, Alex Treseder, John Peters and Henry Cameron with the Anderson brothers, Robbie and Jeremy, and Rathkeale College youngster Matt Stringfellow contesting the middle order spots.
No doubt the batsmen will be hoping the park oval pitch plays truer than it has in previous games this season when a variable bounce, often low, has created unwanted problems for them.
Manawatu could have national under-19 pace bowler Ben Small in their line-up and he would be lethal on a wicket which sees the ball coming through at different heights on a regular basis.
Brown is optimistic, however, that Wairarapa can give what will be a strong Manawatu squad a good run for their money and perhaps even secure their first win of this season's Hawke Cup campaign.
"Maximum points is the goal, nothing less than that," he said.
Meanwhile, matches in the Bidwell Cup senior men's inter-club competition will continue tomorrow with the matches between Lansdowne and Red Star at Park Sports 2 and Greytown and Wairarapa College at Greytown becoming virtual one-day affairs after last Saturday's play was washed out.
The clash with the Hawke Cup fixture has Lansdowne, which has seven players involved, struggling to field a full complement of players for their clash with Red Star and the latter will obviously be wanting to take full advantage of that situation. Greytown will also be depleted, especially in the bowling, and Wairarapa College's prospects have improved immeasureably as a result.