Central keeps one-day hopes alive

Press, 30 January 1984, Page 30

Central keeps one-day hopes alive

PA Wanganui Central Districts kept their hopes alive in the oneday Shell Cup cricket series with a nail-biting twowicket victory over Canterbury at Cooks Gardens yesterday. Canterbury, well beaten in the Shell Trophy game at New Plymouth over the previous three days, struggled most of the day to finish with 175 and set Central quite an easy target. But Central started disastrously, losing the first three wickets for only nine runs, and it was mainly a fourth-wicket stand of 103 between Richard Hayward (63) and Martin Crowe (59) that swung the game in favour of the host team. The finish was tense, however, as Canterbury, also needing a victory to stay in contention, struck back. After the shock of three quick wickets, two of them to Vaughan Brown, Central re-established with the Hay-ward-Crowe stand. Crowe batted 89min for 59 which included seven fours and a six while the Nelson professional, Hayward, was in for 134 min for his 63 with four boundaries and two sixes. Central was in all sorts of trouble early in the innings, chasing a target of just over 3.5 runs an over. The first 50 took 58min, the 100 was hoisted in 98min, and the 150 in 142 min with the century partnership between Crowe, later named man of the match, and Hayward, taking only 83min. The wickets were shared with four Canterbury bowlers finishing with two each, including the test strike man, Richard Hadlee, who took two for 25 from his 10 overs. Central won with seven balls to spare. Canterbury was also in trouble at the start of its innings, recovered thanks to the middle-order, but in the end could muster only 175 from 49.5 overs. Cran Bull batted patiently

for 47 in 92min while earlier Dave Stead (23) and Richard Hadlee (23) added reasonable opposition. Canterbury. however, never really relished the short Cooks Gardens side boundaries with Stead batting 74min for his runs and Hadlee just over half an hour, picking up five of the 12 boundaries in the total. Although the ball was inclined to play low at times, it was not a particularly good batting effort for the Cantabrians. The best partnerships were 37 for the sixth wicket between Stead and Bull in half an hour, 36 for the eighth wicket between Bull and Tony Blain in 43min, and 34 for the fifth wicket between Stead and Hadlee in 32min. CANTERBURY P. Rattray c Hayward b O'Sullivan 14 R. Latham b O’Sullivan. . 6 P. McEwan c Wiltshire b Crowe 11 V. Brown lbw b Stirling . 0 D. Stead b Robertson ... 24 R. Hadlee run out 23 C. Bull c Hayward b Stirling 47 A. Devlin lbw b Stirling . 3 T. Blain c Smith b Stirling. 16 S. McNally b Robertson . 8 C. Thiele hot out 1 Extras (b 4 lb 9, nb4, w5). 22 Total 175 Fall: 15, 32, 33, 40, 74, 111, 119, 155, 170. 175. Bowling.—G. Robertson 9.5, 0, 27, 2; D. O’Sullivan 10, 3, 27, 2; D. Stirling 10, 1, 32, 4; M. Crowe 10, 0, 31, 1; P. Visser 10, 0, 36, 0. CENTRAL DISTRICTS I. Snook c Hadlee b Brown 8 R. Hart c Blain b Brown 0 S. Biasco c Stead b Hadlee 0 M. Crowe c Blain b Hadlee 59 R. Hayward lbw b McNally 63 J. Wiltshire c Blain b McNally 15 I. Smith c Rattray b Stead. 2 G. Robertson c Brown b Stead 4 D. O’Sullivan not out .. . 12 D. Stirling not out 3 Extras (lbl3) 13 Total (for 8 wkts) 179 Fall: 8. 9,9, 112, 157, 161, 166. Bowling.-R. Hadlee 10, 2, 25, 2: V. Brown 10, 4, 30, 2; C. Thiele 10, 0, 25, 0; D. Stead 10, 0, 47, 2; S. McNally 9.5, 1, 39, 2.