Tenacious Central get points
Accurate spinners play key role
IN A tense match against Northern Districts, Central Districts clung on to take first inning points in round two of the national under-17 cricket tournament at Lincoln in Christchurch yesterday.
CD opted to bat first on Sunday setting Northern a target of 227/10 with the two Whanganui representatives Akash Gill and Connor O’Leary both scoring 12.
The Francis Douglas pairing of 15-year-old Matt Allen and Finbar Moriarty top scored with 53 and 52 respectively.
In the Sunday afternoon session Northern chased hard putting 113 runs on the board for the loss of two wickets before stumps.
Northern came out yesterday morning looking likely on paper at least to easily make up the 115 runs required to surpass their rivals, but the CD bowlers had other ideas. Northern fell short by 11 runs after CD had a field day.
CD then went back into bat needing only to hang in there for the remainder of the day to take first innings points and they did just that.
CD coach Dilan Raj said the fact his lads had taken eight wickets for 100 runs showed how far they had grown.
“It was a spinners track today and all our bowlers did their job,” Raj said.
“The pace bowlers, including Connor had a plan to bowl dot balls and allow the spinners at the other end to take the wickets.”
Josh Simpson from Nelson bowled well to take 3, while Gill claimed two for 19 runs and O’Leary one for 12.
“I was particularly pleased with our batters, especially young Matt and Finbar. They went out there and absorbed the pressure very well,” Raj said.
“Unfortunately, we didn't get any points out our first match against Wellington, but we have four more games to go, so hopefully we can still make the finals.”
CD have a rest day today before heading into the one day action for the remainder of the week with Canterbury first up tomorrow.