Volts beat Kings
Dropped catches costly for Sparks
It is hard to win a cricket match dropping five simple catches.
That was the lesson for the Otago Sparks yesterday at the University of Otago Oval in Dunedin as they shelled chance after chance in their failure to defend their score of 164-4 against the Canterbury Magicians.
Four of those dropped catches were off Kirsty Nation’s bat in the fifth, eighth, 14th and 15th overs. She went on to score 91 runs off 60 balls – the highest score by a Magician – before she was bowled by Leigh Kasperek as her side won by nine wickets with eight balls to spare.
At the other end, her opening partner, Frances MacKay, was also dropped in the first six overs before playing the steady hand at the other end with 62 not out off
50 balls.
Earlier, English import Alice Davidson-Richards led Otago through their innings with 80 off
52 balls – the second-highest T20 score by a Sparks player. She struck 10 fours and two sixes with a mix of creative shot-making.
She shared a 100-hundred run partnership with White Fern Katey Martin (61 off 46).
The win took the Magicians to the top of the T20 Super Smash standings, while the Sparks remain fourth. The Otago Volts are already halfway to their win tally from their last T20 Super Smash campaign after a first-up win over the Canterbury Kings.
Last season’s wooden spooners won just two games in 2017-18, but knocked off the Kings at the University of Otago Oval in Dunedin yesterday afternoon with a fivewicket triumph.
They chased down Canterbury’s 184-5 with three balls to spare thanks to good knocks at either end of the innings from Hamish Rutherford and Anaru Kitchen.
But the match could have gone a lot differently if Canterbury took their chances. Twice they dropped Kitchen. First, when on seven in the 10th over, Henry Shipley put down a dolly of a chance at long on. Then, when on
36 in the 15th over, Leo Carter put down a tougher chance at deep square leg.
Kitchen would go on to make
44 off 33, pushing his side to the precipice of victory alongside Shawn Hicks (31 off 20). Their lower order eventually got them home.
Earlier, Otago made an impressive start to their chase, reaching 95-1 after nine overs as Rutherford (54 off 29) and Neil Broom (32 off 18) got their side off to a flier.
But wickets slowed them up as well, especially Rutherford’s in the 10th over.
Two balls after Rutherford fell, Kitchen was dropped in what proved to be the crucial moment in the match.
Canterbury made a similarly good start to their innings, reaching 102-1 after 11 overs.
Chad Bowes and Stephen Murdoch were ticking things along nicely, but the former fell to Christi Viljoen’s first ball for 42 off 31 balls. Viljoen grabbed a second wicket in the over as Canterbury skipper Cole McConchie was caught at backward point. He would end with 2-13 off two overs.
Murdoch ran himself out soon after for 54 off 33 balls as the Kings’ innings continued to falter through the middle stages.
Kyle Jamieson (33 not out off 17) and Cam Fletcher (22 not out off 16) hit out late on to get Canterbury through to their total.