Wairarapa cricket has bright future: Kendall

Wairarapa senior men's cricket selector Dick Kendall is not disillusioned by the lack of success achieved by his side on the representative front in the 2005-06 season.
Rather he sees them as having made sufficient progress to suggest they will become a serious contender for a Hawke Cup challenge over the next couple of years
"We certainly didn't win as many games as we would have liked but when you look back we had a good chance of earning at least first innings points in all of them," he said".
"Do that and we would have had enough points for a Cup challenge this season."
Kendall, who retains the selectorial role for the next two seasons, believes only slight changes in culture and leadership could be enough to make Wairarapa a real force to be reckoned with at Cup level.
He said it was vital the players themselves were prepared to back themselves no matter what the quality of the opposition.
"There were a couple of games this season where we simply weren't positive enough in our decision making," he said. "We were thinking too much about how not to lose rather than placing the emphasis on going all out to win."
Kendall said the rep team would also be helped by a change in the club format with two-day games being played prior to the Hawke Cup matches so that the players were in the right mode for the longer version of the game.
"This season all they had was a diet of limited-overs games and some of them struggled to adjust", he said.
Kendall admits too that the quality of club play needs to be lifted so that the rep players were forced to work harder for their runs or wickets at that level of the
sport.
"The more competitive the edge we have to club games the more competitive our rep side will be," he said.
Wairarapa was scheduled to play the Doug Catley invitation XI in a "friendly" limited-overs game at the Park Oval in Masterton on Sunday but inclement weather marred pitch preparation to the extent the game could not be played.
It will now be held this coming Sunday with Kendall having to make changes from his previous line-up because of the unavailability of John Peters, Aaron Bidlake and, possibly, Hayden Spierling.
Kendall said Wairarapa would be taking the game seriously as it was not only the chance to showcase local talent but also the standard of the Park Oval pitch which he hoped would become a regular venue for first-class matches.
"We have an outstanding cricketing facility there and the more top level cricket is played on the oval the better," he said.
"Games like this attract attention and we want everything about it to be positive.".