Joey Field has a hectic two-month representative cricket schedule ahead of him. Photo/Paul Taylor
Joey Field has a hectic two-month representative cricket schedule ahead of him. Photo/Paul Taylor
If excitement is a fix for intellectual magnificence then, it seems, Hawke's Bay cricketer Joey Field will have to fasten his seatbelt for an exhilarating trip this year.
Field has been selected to represent the New Zealand Under-19 team on the tour of Bangladesh from April 10 to 29.
But before that the 18-year-old is playing for the New Zealand Emerging Players against Auckland A, Northern Districts A and Ali's Warriors, an IPL feeder team from India, starting at Owen Delaney Park, Taupo, today."It's a pretty busy schedule but, I guess, it's just a matter of balancing it because I want to go far in cricket and New Zealand Under-19s is my goal so these games will prepare me for that," said Field after completing orientation week at Waikato University last week as a Sir Edmund Hillary Memorial scholarship holder in the pursuit of a degree in human performance science and psychology.
Having lost the Murray McKearney Cup in the Property Brokers Hawke's Bay Cricket Association Twenty20 competition on Sunday, the Reynard Health Supplies Havelock North CC premier club cricketer is going to miss the playoff matches in Taupo on Thursday to catch a flight to Nelson where he'll join the Jacob Smith-captained Pay Excellence Hawke's Bay senior men's representative to challenge for the Hawke Cup, the symbol of minor association cricket supremacy in the country, at Saxton Oval from Friday to Sunday.
He will miss the first week of lectures but has faith in the tertiary education system of academic support via the digital platform although he has dropped a minor psychology paper to sit seven to relieve the stress.
"It's pretty special that at 18 years of age I'll, hopefully, be challenging for the Hawke Cup when some of the great names don't even get the chance to do it," says the former Hastings Boys' High School student who is a bowling allrounder who used to open or come in at first drop for his school first XI but is a tail ender for the age-group rep and senior men's teams.
Like many Bay senior teammates, Field has never graced Saxton Oval so he's hopeful they'll emerge winners in the three-day game, albeit for more personal excitement.
"Funnily enough if we win the next [defence] will be against Hamilton and my older brother is opening batting for them if he is picked," he says with a grin of James Field, 22, who has graduated as an accountant from Waikato University and is living and working in the city.
For the record, their other talented sibling, also former HBHS head boy Sam Field, 21, a final year Canterbury University civil engineering student, has made the Canterbury United Dragons squad as a centreback in the ISPS Handa Premiership (national summer league).
"All the challenges I face going up into these teams, I think, is to do with having two older brothers who have set the benchmark so high which makes me want to work harder, not necessarily to do better than them but be an equivalent as they push me," says Joey Field.
James Field, a former Hawke's Bay senior men's representative cricketer, now opens batting for Hamilton and may face his old team if they win the Hawke Cup. Photo/file
He measures his excitement of touring the subcontinent with the stepping stones on offer to put his hand up for a place in the Kiwi squad to compete at the 13th edition of the ICC Under-19 World Cup in South Africa from January next year.
"Obviously I want to play for the Central Districts Stags someday but I've got to put in all the hard work down the track."
He juxtaposes the challenges of touring Bangladesh with the demands of fulfilling his portfolio as the outgoing HBHS head boy but is now looking to step outside his comfort zone of not depending on his parents, Raewyn and Steve Field, of Havelock North.
"It's up to me now to work hard because I'm out in the big world so mum and dad aren't there to help me out so it's going to be a good challenge."
He sees the Ali's Warriors as an ideal introduction to the subcontinent approach where mixing up his pace deliveries with slower ones to emerge much wiser for it this week in Taupo.
Field says sport has always been part of the family lifestyle with his mother playing netball while father was a cricketer and rugby player.
The teenager's path to progress isn't the result of a couple of stellar performances, as such, but a map of continuity growing up, showing dedication and commitment to whatever code he embraced with a refreshingly enviable sense of an appropriate attitude and a willingness to learn.
Nelson century maker Thomas Zohrab was due to make his CD A debut alongside provincial teammates Willem Luddick and Felix Murray as well as the Bay's Liam Dudding, Bradley Schmulian and Bayley Wiggins in their match against Wellington A in Palmerston North yesterday.
With the Stags hosting the Otago Volts in round six of the Plunket Shield at McLean Park, Napier, on Friday Nelson/CD captain Greg Hay will not be able to lead his province to defend the Hawke Cup.
Nelson coach Ryan Edwards says they aren't going to confirm Hay's replacement or the captain until CD coach Heinrich Malan names his team today.
However, Edwards is hoping Stag Joshua Clarkson will pass his fitness today after a groin injury that saw him miss the Burger King Super Smash playoffs for the CD champions a fortnight ago.
No points for guessing Clarkson will captain Nelson if he's in the equation.
■ NELSON: Thomas Zohrab, David Zohrab, Joshua Clarkson, Willem Ludick, Paddy Howes, Nic Clark (wk), Felix Murray, Sam Baxendine, Jarrod McKay, Ben Stark, Devon Serrurier, Josh Newport.
