Wairarapa eye Hawke Cup

Wairarapa's impressive innings and 123-run win over Horowhenua-Kapiti at Queen Elizabeth Park Oval in Masterton over the weekend has given them a royal chance of challenging for the trophy most keenly sought after by minor cricket associations throughout the country, the Hawke Cup.
For that to happen, Wairarapa need to win their zone and, with just one series of matches to go, they sit in second place on the points table with 21, just three behind leaders Hawke's Bay. In third place on 20 points are Manawatu, followed by Taranaki on 19, Wanganui on 6, and Horowhenua-Kapiti 4.
An outright success over Wanganui in the last of their games early next month could well see Wairarapa leapfrog Hawke's Bay who have a more difficult assignment against Taranaki to come. But selector-coach Mark Brown isn't about to start counting his chickens.
"It's nice to have given ourselves a chance of earning a challenge but there's still a lot of hard work to be done before we can think that far ahead," he said. "They [Wanganui] are clearly a better side than their current placing suggests and it'll take another huge effort to knock them off."
Wairarapa's win over Horowhenua-Kapiti could hardly have been more decisive but, even so, Brown was not completely satisfied with their performance.
Horowhenua-Kapiti batted first and, with conditions always likely to provide some assistance for the bowlers, the onus was placed on the Wairarapa attack to bowl full and straight. Unfortunately, the medium pacers, especially, struggled at times to maintain the necessary line and length, and it was experienced spinner Steve Coleman with 5-41 who did most of the damage as the visitors were dismissed for 184.
"We were pretty happy to restrict them to that total but quite honestly they probably got more runs than they should have," Brown said. "There were periods when we didn't ask enough of them because we simply didn't put the ball in the right places."
Wairarapa made an outstanding start to their first innings, with the new opening partnership of Tim Lucas and Jamie Holmes piling on the runs, Lucas getting through to 91 and Holmes to 60.
The promotion of Holmes to the opening berth raised a few eyebrows as he generally bats in the lower order and came after the player had worked overtime to persuade Brown he was worth a try in the role. "He [Holmes] has been asking for a while if he could have a crack at opening and I guess you could say he finally wore me down," Brown quipped after a knock that saw Brown score at a rate of almost a run a minute.
Lucas was more conservative in his approach but still displayed a wide range of strokes, and was unlucky to fall just nine runs short of what would have been a well-deserved century. There were other handy scores from the in-form Henry Cameron, whose 63 took him to over 300 runs for this rep season, Sam Curtis and Coleman, both of whom made 46.
Declaring at 373-6, Wairarapa held a first innings lead of 184 and within another 90 minutes or so they had picked up maximum points by dismissing Horowhenua-Kapiti in their second innings for a paltry 66. Central Stag Seth Rance and Dean Van Deventer opened the bowling for the home side and were in dynamic form, taking all 10 wickets between them. Rance finished with 5-30 and Van Deventer 5-28, with the Horowhenua-Kapiti batsmen unable to cope with their sustained accuracy.
"They executed our plans perfectly, couldn't have been better," Brown said of Rance and Van Deventer. "They bowled in the right channels and made it easy to set the type of field, which meant the batsmen were always under pressure. It was just what we wanted."
Wairarapa's previous Hawke Cup fixture had seen them get the better of hotly fancied Taranaki at New Plymouth in a match dominated by the bat.
With Cameron scoring 96, Van Deventer 97 and Robbie Speers 83, Wairarapa reached a healthy 409 in their first and only innings, while Taranaki replied with 394. Wairarapa picked up the valuable first innings points by 15 runs.
On the club scene, the latest round of matches in the More FM Twenty20 competition saw Greytown beat Red Star and Wairarapa College account for Rathkeale College.
Greytown made 121-1 (Paul Lyttle 30 and Blake Lyford 29 not out) in reply to Red Star's 118 (Joe Hull 46), while Wairarapa College made 136-7 to edge out Rathkeale College whose 131-6 was dominated by the unbeaten 51 struck by Harry Clinton-Baker.
Points with one round to play: Greytown 12, Red Star 8, Flight Centre Lansdowne 8, Wairarapa College 4, and Rathkeale College 0.