Matt Simes batted with great composure and patience at club and representative level last summer and that will be needed against Manawatu at Fitzherbert Park at the weekend.
Matt Simes batted with great composure and patience at club and representative level last summer and that will be needed against Manawatu at Fitzherbert Park at the weekend.
The first Unreal Grass Wicket Wanganui team for the summer will be hoping to start the Furlong Cup campaign in the same vein as they finished last season, when they travel to Palmerston North on Saturday.
A 2018-19 summer that was threatening to go off the rails, after senior playerwithdrawals and the mid-season departure of English player-coach Charlie Hartley, finished strongly with back-to-back first innings points wins over Taranaki and Wairarapa - the former having not happened since 2001.
Property Brokers United veteran Tom Lance had stepped into the role of team selector, while Andrew Lock continued to manage the team directly while they self-coached.
On Saturday, five players who were part of the last home win over Wairarapa remain in the squad travelling to take on Manawatu at Fitzherbert Park, while bowling allrounder Ross Kinnerley was a key part of last season's squad who had to miss the final game.
Also returning from having stayed last summer back in England is batsman and former Wanganui captain Greg Smith, who thanks to the appropriate amount of time spent on the local scene now qualifies as a home player.
So does Central Districts A and Canadian youth representative Akash Gill, who has done winter training in Whanganui as well as club cricket for the last three summers.
It was an unfortunate point of contention in the 2017-18 season where NZ Cricket mandated the Wanganui selectors had to choose between Smith or Gill to be the team's international player, after both had received dispensation to play together the previous summer.
After a summer back in England, former Wanganui captain Greg Smith returns to the side for the start of the representative campaign.
Saturday will also be the debut in the blue cap for Sri Lankan Twenty20 international Vikum Sanjaya, who will be the international player and is the acting player/coach of the side this summer.
The 27-year-old Sanjaya will also captain the side for what is planned to be a one-off, as incumbent skipper Dominic Lock is required to be in Hamilton for an important tertiary assessment this weekend.
Other than Lock, Lance said he had a full roster available from which to pick the side, with the wider group having been training for the past month, while finally getting on the pitch for the first time last Saturday in the second round of the Coastal Challenge Cup.
"I'm very happy, I think it's a quite a strong lineup, especially for the first game of the season.
"There was nobody else that was unavailable. There's a few with university and bits and pieces that can come into the wider squad later.
"It's not like everybody's been there with every [representative] training, but they had club cricket as well, they should be ready.
"There's a bit of excitment around it, with how they finished last season."
With Gill and Smith being locals and Sanjaya the international, the other Canadian-Indian in batsman Akhil Kumar gets the qualifying player spot in the side.
Wanganui will take two spinners in Joel Clark and Dylan Martin, who both debuted for the team last summer - Clark making the Central Districts Under 17's while Martin starred on debut with eight wickets against Wairarapa.
Sam Sherriff and Matt Simes raised their bats in Furlong Cup last season, with Simes retaining the wicketkeeper gloves, while Connor O'Leary compliments Kinnerley and Kumar as the pace attack that wrecked Taranaki.
Dominic Rayner and Mark Fraser are the long serving veterans, and after sitting out all but the Wairarapa match last season, Fraser is hungry to score century No 6 for Wanganui to again tie the association record with Central District Stags batsman Ben Smith.
Smith being unavailable due to playing the second round Plunket Shield game against Northern Districts in Mt Maunganui is balanced by the fact Manawatu have given up three players for that game in Dane Cleaver, Raymond Toole and George Worker.
Coached by former Black Cap Jacob Oram, Manawatu are led by incumbent skipper Tim Richards, while with Cleaver away on Stags duty, former Wanganui captain Bryce Grant comes in to take the gloves.
Richards is among seven survivors from the last time Manawatu played Wanganui – at Victoria Park on December 1-2 last year.
On the Saturday, in damp conditions ideal for pace bowling, Wanganui had a golden chance at first innings points when they bowled the visitors out for 157 in 46 overs, but succumbed themselves for 133 inside 43 overs to just miss out by 24 runs.
Manawatu batted much more carefully in their second dig, declaring at 233-6, with Wanganui negotiating just five overs before the rain set in permanently on Sunday afternoon.
Wanganui will need batsmen in-form over the two days to avoid a similar happenstance, although few of them were able to put up a big innings in their first club matches last weekend.
The teams are:
Wanganui Dominic Rayner, Matt Simes (wk), Greg Smith, Sam Sherriff, Mark Fraser, Akash Gill, Akhil Kumar, Ross Kinnerley, Vikum Sanjaya (c), Joel Clark, Connor O'Leary, Dylan Martin.
Manawatu Whetu na Nagara, Mason Hughes, Trent McGrath, Arana Noema-Barnett, Floyd na Nagara, Curtis Heaphy, Bryce Grant (wk), Tim Richards (c), Matt Borren, Braden Rowe, Carlos Jensen, Jack Harris.
