Cricket: Mase the ace when CD shuffle pack | Hawkes Bay Sport | Surfing, Rugby, Soccer, Football, Cricket in Hawkes Bay

The interview with Michael Mason follows the banality of the typical question-and-answer ritual and then, abruptly, there's the ever so slightest hesitation in an answer to a question?

Question: "Mate, you sound like this is going to be your last season?" Pregnant pause.

Answer: "To be honest, I'm tossing up on that but, in one-day cricket, this may be the last time you'll be seeing Michael Mason in a green-and-gold jersey."

Even during his impending departure, the 37-year-old veteran seamer from Palmerston North remains a source of inspiration for his Devon Hotel Central Districts Stags teammates before tomorrow's Ford Trophy semifinal in New Plymouth.

The Stags go into the match at Pukekura Park comfortable in the knowledge they have two lives after defying several odds to finish as the top qualifiers in the one-day men's domestic competition when the dust settled in the round-robin stage of a rain-interrupted season on Wednesday night.

Having flogged the Auckland Aces this week, the Alan Hunt-coached CD team have found the much-needed confidence and momentum that proved elusive for the Stags during their mediocre HRV Cup Twenty20 campaign last month.

"We want to be at our home ground [Pukekura Park] and in the final," Mason says, agreeing winning is a habit and the Stags are on the front foot after putting behind the disappointment of missing out on the T20 bragging rights which Auckland have secured by booking their berth in the lucrative club Champions League in India later this year.

The Jamie How-captained CD side have been training three hours a time during the week and two hours before the game to keep their hopes alive in etching their name on the silverware despite the limited time on the crease because of the ill-timing of the rain throughout the country.

While the toss of the coin, which favoured CD, was a factor in helping skittle the Aces cheaply, Mason likes to believe the Stags are a better outfit on the day.

With the Paul Strang-coached Auckland team missing Martin Guptill, Kyle Mills and Michael Bates to the Black Caps squad, the defending champions have struggled in the one-dayers as they lost their top perch in the last round after back-to-back defeats.

It didn't help the Gareth Hopkins-captained Aces that former Pakistan international import Azhar Mahmood has returned to England in the hope of securing an IPL contract this month.

However, Mason notes Andre Adams, out with a chest infection in the last round, and veteran test seamer Chris Martin are likely to be back in the fold tomorrow.

"In the next game I'm sure Chris and Andre will be back," the former Black Caps bowler says, adding former CD left-arm seamer Mitchell McClenaghan didn't get the backing from his teammates on Wednesday whereas the Stags had youngsters Adam Milne and Bevan Small backing him up as a potent three-prong attack.

"We like having another chance in the play-offs [two lives] but we'll be disappointed if we don't play well in front of our home crowd."

The winners of tomorrow's game, to be televised live on Sky Sport 1 from 11am, will progress directly to the final while the losers will play the winners of the third and fourth place-getters, Otago and Canterbury, also playing tomorrow at the Dunedin Oval. Win or lose, CD are guaranteed to host the next play-off match at Pukekura Park.

The limited-overs competition doesn't have the intensity of the T20 matches where a lot can go wrong in a couple of overs or a fine catch or run-out but players tend to put a lot of pressure on themselves come play-off time.

"In the 50 overs, there are little percentages that can help your side and there's the power play, too," says the man who boasts 93 limited-overs matches under his belt, including 124 wickets and 75 maidens when the 2011-12 season started. His best haul in the format is 6-25.

There's no secret to the longevity of his career. Mason likes to believe he escaped the early-career injury toll many young bowlers carry because he played at the domestic level when he was 23 as opposed to the contemporary stock who start in their late teens.

"I suppose I also had a simple, no-fuss bowling action. I was already through the growth spurts so that made it easy on my body," he says, wishing the young brigade all the best and mindful some of them have the prowess to foot it at the Black Caps' level.

He's keen to carry on playing for Manawatu next summer and, hopefully, help them clinch the Hawke Cup, the symbol of minor association supremacy.

In winter, he will keep playing soccer as a midfielder to stay fit.

No doubt he'll miss the camaraderie of CD.

"I love competing, the team culture and the flat wickets, so I'll miss that. I enjoy putting my hand up even when I'm tired. I like doing well and always being there at the end of the season wanting the ball," Mason says.

All said and done, he doesn't want to receive any SOS from CD in the second leg of the four-day Plunket Shield campaign.

"I don't want that phone call, 'Help me, mate'," he says with a laugh after responding to a call from his skipper before Christmas when injury took its toll on the crop of young bowlers in the shield competition.

Match facts

* WHAT: Ford Trophy play-offs.

* WHO: Devon Hotel Central Districts Stags v Auckland Aces.

* WHEN: 11am, tomorrow (Live Sky Sport 1).

* WHERE: Pukekura Park, New Plymouth.

* CD STAGS: Jamie How (c), Dean Robinson, Greg Todd, Mathew Sinclair, Kieran Noema-Barnett, Carl Cachopa, Kruger van Wyk, Michael Mason, Martin Kain, Bevan Small, Stevie Smidt, Adam Milne.

Coach: Alan Hunt. Manager: Lance Hamilton.

* AUCKLAND: Gareth Hopkins (c), Brad Cachopa, Anaru Kitchen, Jeet Raval, Colin de Grandhomme, Andre Adams, Colin Munro, Dusan Hakaraia, Ronnie Hira, Chris Martin, Mitchell McClenaghan, Dean Bartlett, Neal Parlane.