CRICKET: Stags show their fighting spirit

ANENDRA SINGH | 8th March 2010

If the shorter versions of cricket bring out the animal instincts in players then rest assured the longer ones define the sum total of a spectrum of characteristics within a team.

Chasing 361 in 74 overs to win the four-day Plunket Shield match in New Plymouth, most teams, having secured first-innings points, would have played conservatively for a stalemate.

Not the Jamie How-led Central Districts Stags who pulled off a one-wicket victory over the Canterbury Wizards in the four-day encounter at Pukekura Park with two balls to spare.

That pushed the Stags into third place on the table, equal on points with the Otago Volts, who pipped the Auckland Aces by 23 runs in Dunedin to boast a better run rate in second spot.

One-day champions Northern Districts are 10 points clear of the other two teams.

Asked if doubts started creeping in yesterday, CD batsman Mathew Sinclair told SportToday they did because of the very nature of the highs and lows of a four-day match.

"They [CD batsmen] got themselves in a position to bat and then someone got out. Someone else got into a position and he went out.

"We had an outright win after spending a good day and a half on the field so we couldn't ask for any more," said the former international named in the 30-member Twenty20 squad to travel to the West Indies for the World Cup next month.

Canterbury, with their backs against the wall when CD enforced a follow-on on Friday after revealing a soft underbelly for 223 in their first innings, amassed 551-5. It came on the platform of a national record unbeaten 379-run sixth-wicket partnership between Shanan Stewart (227no) and Kruger van Wyk (178no) as the Wizards had a sorry look about them at 172-5 on Saturday.

New Zealand coach Mark Greatbatch yesterday rewarded Stewart, who was named in the World Cup T20 squad on Friday, with a call-up to the Black Caps squad for the current Australian Chapple-Hadlee Series.

Sinclair said wicketkeeper Bevan Griggs' 53 off 51 balls did the trick as Ewen Thompson (29 runs), Doug Bracewell (27 runs) made contributions before teenager Adam Milne of Manawatu hit the winning runs off his maiden first-class match, after veteran seamer Michael Mason got an SOS from Greatbatch on Thursday night.

Milne was instrumental in helping Manawatu carved up Hawke's bay during the Hawke Cup-winning challenge last month.

Sinclair, who top scored with 76 in the second innings and opener George Worker backed up with 61, felt the short boundaries at the park made the match a high-scoring affair.

How and Sinclair had impressed on the Stags the importance of tailenders not sacrificing their wickets cheaply and in this game even the rabbits showed fighting character.

"Napier will be tough because it has a good wicket and we're ready for Wellington who are down on confidence so we'll put some pressure on them," said Sinclair of the Firebirds, who lost to Northern Districts by a crushing nine wickets midway through the third day of play on Saturday at the Basin Reserve in Wellington.

The boys from the capital, with a fragile batting line-up, play from this Friday at McLean Park, having carded three nine-wicket losses and one by 10.