Michael Bracewell tops family leaderboard
Black Caps allrounder Michael Bracewell is finally back playing red ball cricket and the comeback has been every bit as big as the setback.
The right arm off-spinner bowled Wellington to a lopsided Plunket Shield victory yesterday by taking eight of the ten Otago wickets to fall in their second innings.
Bracewell’s last red ball game was one year and one day before his eight-wicket heroics and came at the same venue, the Basin Reserve, in the second test match against Sri Lanka.
The big hitting allrounder ruptured his Achilles tendon in his right leg when playing in the County Championship in England last June, an injury that ruled him out of last year’s ODI Cricket World Cup and all cricket for the best part of seven months.
He returned in January via the domestic T20 competition, the Super Smash, before working his way back to 50 over and now first class cricket.
Bracewell removed six of the top seven Otago batters when returning the figures of 8-41 – his best return in first class cricket – in just 11.4 overs, as the Wellington Firebirds beat the Otago Volts by an innings and 42 runs.
His new best bowling figures in first class cricket bettered the top performances of his uncle John Bracewell (8-81) and cousin Doug Bracewell (7-35).
Bracewell, 33, also got through 13 wicket-less overs in Otago’s first innings of 280 and made a successful return with the bat, scoring 40 from 47 balls, in Wellington’s first innings of 421.
Gareth Severin top scored with 105 and
Peter Younghusband made 80 as Otago’s Dean Foxcroft claimed the figures of 6-84, including the wickets of Bracewell and Severin.
Thanks to Bracewell’s eight wickets and Younghusband’s 2-27, Otago were skittled for just 99.
Bracewell is expected to be back in the Black Caps frame in the coming months in the leadup to the T20 Cricket World Cup in the USA that begins in June.
Thanks to maximum points in the win over Otago, Wellington now lead the Plunket Shield with one round of the competition remaining.
They hold a four-point interim buffer over second-placed Northern Districts, with the latter facing a big task to avoid defeat against Canterbury on the final day of their match today.