Stead poised to be announced as coach of Black Caps
THE new Black Caps coach will be unveiled today.
But the stuffing has been knocked out of the announcement by Fairfax Media reporting Canterbury coach Gary Stead will succeed Mike Hesson.
The 46yearold former Black Cap in understood to have got the nod ahead of Central Districts coach Heinrich Malan.
Stead, who played five tests for his country, emerged as an early favourite.
During his fiveyear stint with Canterbury, he helped steer the team to three Plunket Shield titles.
A nuggety toporder batsman, he played five tests for his country and gave a decent account of himself at the top level, scoring 278 runs at an average of 34.75.
But it was the firstclass level at which Stead built his reputa tion as a reliable performer.
He played 101 firstclass games and scored just under 5000 runs at an honest average of 32.15, including 10 centuries.
After retiring, Stead turned to coaching and led the White Ferns to the 2009 World Cup final.
He took over as Canterbury coach in 2012 and is an articulate and thoughtful operator who is widely respected on the domestic circuit. Stead will inherit his first squad after the team to face Pakistan in the United Arab Emirates in OctoberNovember was named last month.
LONDON: England batsman Alex Hales may have caused injuries to a man who was later knocked unconscious by England teammate Ben Stokes, a court has heard.
Stokes (27) has insisted he was acting in selfdefence when he hit Ryan Ali (28) and Ryan Hale (27) after they had abused two gay men near a nightclub in Bristol.
Bristol Crown Court heard that the precise start to the violence is unknown but Ali, who is on trial alongside Stokes accused of affray, swung a beer bottle at
Hales.
Ali then delivered a glancing blow to the shoulder of Kai
Barry, a gay man who was out with friend William
O’Connor in the Clifton Triangle area of Bristol in the early hours of September 25 last year.
Stokes is accused of knocking Ali to the ground, fellow crick eter Hales then apparently kicking his head and stamping on him as he lay on the ground.
Stokes is said to have knocked Hale unconscious before doing the same to Ali a short time later.
Ali suffered a fracture to the medial orbital wall on the left hand side of his face, with swelling on his left eye and a laceration above his eyebrow, a cracked lower left molar and a bruise behind his left ear.
Jurors have been told that Hales was interviewed under caution but not arrested or charged in connection with the incident.
Gordon Cole QC, representing Stokes, questioned whether his client had caused all of the injuries sustained by Ali given Hales’ alleged involvement.
He asked the jury to carefully consider footage taken by student Max Wilson, who began filming from his bedroom window after hearing shouting from the street below.
The jury of six men and six women have been told Stokes and Hales went to the Mbargo nightclub in Bristol, where they had been drinking earlier in the evening, early on September 25.
Giving evidence, Stokes told the jury he intervened after hearing Hale and Ali launch homophobic abuse towards Barry and O’Connor on a street near the nightclub and that Ali threatened him with a bottle in return.
He insisted he was acting in selfdefence and in defence of Hales, Barry and O’Connor at all times and admitted throwing a number of punches at Ali and Hale. The trial continues. — BPA