Cricket: Rising Auckland prospect faces golden summer

By TERRY MADDAFORD

It will be a different, even sobering, experience for Tim McIntosh when he strides out to bat for Auckland against Northern Districts in Gisborne.

The State Championship match will be the first where the 22-year-old has not opened the innings.

"It will be kind of different for sure," McIntosh said. "I haven't sat around waiting with the pads on before."

New coach Mark O'Donnell has so many top-order options that it seems McIntosh will probably bat at four.

"I have to accept that with players such as Mark Richardson, Matt Horne and Lou Vincent all set to go in before me, I might not get a bat," he said. "But that does not worry me. If that was the case, it would mean we had scored plenty of runs."

McIntosh, a tall left-hander, is seen as an ideal option at the top of the order.

Not surprisingly, he almost always forms part of a left-right-hand opening combination. Except, that is, when he bats for his club side, Parnell, who have six or seven left-handers in their line-up.

McIntosh, who has already played 25 first-class games since his 1998-99 debut, has fashioned an impressive record.

Now, with an average of 32.58 - including four centuries and a highest score of 182 - it is time to press on.

"My goal is to make the New Zealand side within the next two years," he said.

McIntosh spent four years in the Auckland Grammar School first XI and was among the 1999 New Zealand Cricket Academy intake.

He played for New Zealand under-19 against England here in the 1998-99 season. More recently, he has followed others in trekking halfway round the world to play off-season league cricket in England.

"They have been an interesting couple of years, but hopefully, if I can improve my career here, I won't have to continue going back."

Of his role in opening the innings, McIntosh answers with a straight bat.

"Personally, time for me is the key. Occupying the crease is vital.

"Obviously, the longer you bat the easier it becomes. The runs will come the more you make the bowlers bowl at you."

While his preference is with the longer game, McIntosh, who has played just six one-day matches in a two-year period, is keen to play more of the shorter version this summer.

"I have already spoken to Mark O'Donnell about that and he has said that if I can show I'm in good nick I will make it hard for him to leave me out."

At 6ft 4in (1.92m), McIntosh is among the taller batsmen - something he knows is an advantage, particularly if bowlers err in bowling short.

That does, however, mean he must resist any temptation to hook early in his innings.

While his place in the batting order is almost always pre-determined, so too his place in the field.

Given his height, McIntosh is a natural "first slipper", allowing the cordon to spread a little even if he does tend to stand a little closer to wicketkeeper Reece Young.

"The Eden Park wickets make it a bit difficult," McIntosh says. "But that is something you adapt to."

And, if captain Brooke Walker does need to look for another bowling option, McIntosh will be happy to chip in.

He has bowled only two first-class overs, but did trundle down a few in England during the Southern Hemisphere winter, and in one-day games for Parnell this season has claimed 10 wickets and fashioned a three-runs-an-over economy rate.

"I just try and bowl dot balls," he says.

That is fine with the ball, but he will not want too many of those when he gets the bat in his hand and sets out on what he hopes will be a golden summer.