Ryder to pad up for Central Districts

Getting Jesse Ryder to play his first Plunket Shield game in 18 months was no hard ask.

The Central Districts allrounder will play against Wellington at the Basin Reserve on Monday, the first time he has played a four-day fixture in New Zealand since March 2015, when he was with Otago.

Regular Stags captain Will Young is with the New Zealand A team who are playing Pakistan in Nelson this weekend.

So in Young’s absence, former Black Caps all-rounder Ryder, who

had only signed with CD to play limited-overs cricket, will take his spot in the batting order at No 4 against Wellington.

Ryder was meant to start with the Twenty20s next month, but it didn’t take much arm twisting from CD coach Heinrich Malan to get Ryder on board earlier.

‘‘Obviously Youngy’s away and Jesse was always pretty keen to get in a bit of cricket before the Twenty20 stuff started,’’ Malan said. ‘‘The opportunity presented itself and he jumped at the opportunity to get back in the mix and back in the environment.’’

Since Ryder finished with Otago he played the past two New Zealand off seasons with English county side Essex and joined CD last summer for limited-overs cricket.

It will remain to be seen if Ryder is available for the last Plunket Shield game before Christmas, where CD play Northern Districts in Napier in two weeks.

Young will be available then and they could get George Worker back from his elbow injury then.

Worker is still recovering from a ligament tear in his elbow while they are also missing pace bowler Ryan Mccone, who has a hamstring tear.

Tom Bruce will take the captaincy for the first time.

Ben Wheeler is back from concussion and replaces young allrounder Christian Leopard, who debuted against Otago this week.

Paceman Seth Rance is back from a knee injury and replaces Navin Patel, who has a university exam.