Stags aim to bounce back after defeat

On Wednesday night, Central Districts were part of a recordbreaking Twenty20 match when they suffered a one-run loss to the Otago Volts in New Plymouth.

On Thursday, they had their focus firmly on their next Mcdonald’s Super Smash match - away to the Northern Knights today.

The Stags needed 250 to win in 20 overs at Pukekura Park against the Volts on Wednesday, and scored 248-4 to fall just short in the highest aggregate match the history of the format worldwide.

Otago’s score of 249-3 set a new domestic Twenty20 record, surpassing the previous best mark of 229-3 set by Auckland against Wellington at Colin Maiden Park in Auckland in the 2009/10 season.

Opener Hamish Rutherford’s knock of 106 plundered the fourthbiggest Twenty20 innings in New Zealand domestic cricket history, as well as taking the title of secondfastest domestic T20 ton, off 46 balls. CD opener Jamie How reached his century against Wellington at the same ground in 2012 off 45 balls.

Stags opener Mahela Jayawardene also got in on the act, with his inning of 116 being the second-highest in NZ T20 history, behind Martin Guptill’s unbeaten 120 for Auckland against Canterbury in 2011/12 in Rangiora.

However, there was no time to dwell on the historic outing, with the Stags having a short turnaround between games.

Stags coach Heinrich Malan took a lot of positives away from the match against Otago despite the result, with the majority of the bats firing in the team’s lineup.

‘‘Coming one run short chasing 250 is a massive positive. Obviously the result didn’t go our way, bit I think if you look at it, again we got ourselves in a position to win a game and it doesn’t matter whether you chase 150 or 250 - if you get yourself consistently in position to win games you’re going to put yourself higher up the log from a points table perspective.

‘‘We’re halfway through this competition now, there’s still a lot of cricket to be played.’’

The Stags match up against a Knights sided filled with Black Caps, with Trent Boult, Mitchell Santner, Tim Southee and BJ Watling all set to pull on the pink jersey.

Stags would be without big hitter Jesse Ryder again, who was still ‘‘10 or 12 days away’’ from getting back to training as he recovers from a calf injury.

Malan said he was optimistic Ryder would be back for the side’s New Year’s Eve clash against Canterbury in New Plymouth.

‘‘Obviously we’d love to have him [on Friday]‘‘