Richie still on the ball
Captain Kieran Read and his Team Rugby team-mates will dine out on this victory for some time.
Team Rugby, laden with All Blacks, upset heavily fancied Team Cricket by five wickets in the inaugural Black Clash T20 cricket match in front of a packed crowd of more than 7000, at Christchurch’s Hagley Oval last night.
Read hoisted the Lomu-Crowe trophy aloft and his side won’t be shy in reminding Stephen Fleming’s Team Cricket, packed full of former Black Caps, about the result in the coming months.
Needing 37 from the final four overs with six wickets in hand, Team Rugby looked to be cruising.
Jordie Barrett thumped All Blacks team-mate Aaron Smith for back-to-back sixes to inch closer to their target of 169. He finished with a match-winning knock of 42 not out off 26 balls as Team Rugby got home with five balls left.
Some feared the clash of the codes would descend into a cringeworthy hit and giggle-fest, but it proved a competitive showing for the most part, with few freebies dished up with the ball.
It was an inauspicious beginning for Team Rugby with All Blacks great Richie McCaw guilty of a misfield at gully from the first ball of the match.
McCaw was quick to atone for his misfield, running backwards and taking a sharp catch over his shoulder at square leg to remove Fleming for six in Jordie Barrett’s first over.
Team Rugby clearly worked on their fielding in the lead-up to the game, with the man who replaced McCaw as All Blacks captain, Read, taking another impressive grab.
Read teamed up in McCaw’s first over of left-arm military mediums, taking a fine catch running back at mid-off to remove the dangerous Nathan Astle for 14.
Six days after getting married, All Blacks star Beauden Barrett struck in his second over, forcing a mistake out of Grant Elliott as he tried to accelerate the scoring.
Brendon McCullum, still playing on the T20 circuit with the Brisbane Heat in Australia, gifted Aaron Smith a life when he shelled a sitter on the boundary off McCaw’s bowling.