ND and Otago in Plunket Shield grind
It’s only taken two days for the fast food overload to be whipped off the domestic menu and replaced by the meat and potatoes of first-class cricket.
The resumption of the Plunket Shield at the weekend quickly saw blazing boundaries and bunches of wickets from the diet of Twenty20 and one-day matches replaced by the hearty, simplistic fare of redball cricket as Northern Districts and Otago fought for the upper hand in Whangarei.
At stumps on Sunday evening midway through the four-day encounter at Cobham Oval, Otago had reached 270-8 in their first innings in reply to Northern’s 278.
While the wicket was neither a fresh green seamer, nor a raging turner a la Pune for Australia’s surprise demolition of India, it - and a steady stream of demanding bowling - meant all batsmen had to opt for application over inspiration.
Even running between the wickets regularly seemed hard to accomplish without major concern of a wicket falling.
Northern resumed their first innings on Sunday at 269-9 and added nine more runs before BJ Watling was dismissed for 42 from 101 balls in his first match back from injury.
Watling soon showed he was in fine fettle with the gloves too as he snared a sharp catch diving low to his left to claim Otago opener Michael Rippon down the leg-side off James Baker’s bowling.
Baker was the most threatening of the home side’s bowlers but had little luck after his initial breakthrough as a fifth-wicket partnership worth 138 between veteran wicketkeeper-batsman Derek de Boorder and Anaru Kitchen.
Both battled manfully and as Northern’s bowlers tired and erred more often, the boundaries came along more frequently.
Kitchen made 76 from 103 balls before also being strangled down the leg-side while de Boorder got to
89 off 202 balls before the second new ball, Scott Kuggeleijn and Watling saw him off.
Daryl Mitchell got rewards for bending his back determinedly by removing Kitchen and Sam Wells in the same over, with neither fans of the caught behind decisions from umpire Brent Bowden.
On Saturday, Tim Seifert made a fine fist of his opening duties with Watling back in the side as wicketkeeper-batsman by making 97 from 198 balls to top-score for the hosts.
An impressive display from 18-year-old Nathan Smith, playing just his third first-class match, saw him end with 5-56 for the visitors. Debutant Michael Rippon, the leftarm ‘chinaman’ legspinner and opening bat, took 3-71 from 24.4 demanding overs.
ND began the second half of the 10-match Plunket Shield season with a narrow lead on the ladder on 52 points, with win-less Otago bottom on 23.