Stunning cricket win by Canty

Press, 17 December 1984, Page 33

Stunning cricket win by Canty

By JOHN COFFEY The players from both teams gave every impression of just having stepped off a Disneyland ride after Canterbury began its Shell Trophy cricket defence with an 82-run win against Wellington at Dudley Park, Rangiora, on Saturday. Canterbury’s representatives were exhilarated and perhaps a little dizzy from their switchback passage to 12 championship points. Their Wellington counterparts could be excused at being dazed by the events which left them with only four points from a first innings lead. The remarkable matchsalvaging tenth-wicket partnership between Ash Hart and Craig Thiele did not carry long into Saturday. But they had already succeeded in firming the resolve of their team-mates that Wellington would not attain its winning target of 190 runs. In the next 28 minutes Steve McNally and Richard Hadlee dismissed the top five Wellington batsmen for five runs. Even in one of cricket’s crazier games, Wellington had no effective comeback from such a stunning reverse. So confident had Hart and Thiele been the previous day that one was almost convinced it was a deliberate ploy when Thiele steered the tenth delivery to Steve Maguiness in the a. Perhaps Thiele will ise in his memoirs

whether the plan was to get Wellington in quickly, or save his captain, Rod Fulton, the need to calculate a declaration. Wellington’s reply began quietly enough, with Robert Vance playing out Hadlee’s opening over. Fulton had decided that McNally was best suited to bowl towards the north-easterly wind, and his confidence in the big left-armer was soon justified. In five balls McNally had Justin Boyle and Tim Ritchie leg before wicket Ross Ormiston survived the hattrick, but it was not long before he played on to Hadlee. David Oakley became McNally’s third leg-before-wicket victim, and Wellington’s supporters might have suspected that Mr Fred Goodall was importing his umpiring manuals from Karachi. In truth, McNally had fire in his stomach and penetration in his bowling, more than enough to evade the tentative prodding of his rivals. Vance had stood tall among the debris, but he was cut down by an athletic diving catch at third slip by Rod Latham in Hadlee’s next over. It was very much a single digit situation — five for five; McNally three for one; Hadlee two for four. The records were being consulted. The smallest total against Canterbury is 13 (eight of them extras), by Auckland in 1877-78. Wellington’s all-time low is 19

against Nelson in 1885-86, and Canterbury dismissed it for 22 in 1903-04. Some of those statistics, were still relevant when Gavin Larsen offered a batpad catch to Dave Dempsey, and Wellington was 16 for six. It could have been 23 for seven, but McNally had a towering hit from Grant Cederwall spin from his grasp at wide third man. The bowler, Thiele, was compensated when Dempsey deftly caught Cederwall’s slash to the slips. A measure of respectability was injected into Wellington’s demise by Ervin’ McSweeney and Kevan James who advanced the total from 33 to 71 before McSweeney was out on the call of lunch. James was

run out, and it was just too much to expect Richard Pither and Maguiness to compile the 96 needed from the last wicket At least they kept intact Wellington’s sequence of having reached three figures in every completed innings against Canterbury since 1944. Maguiness had the satisfaction of being chosen as “man of the match” for his deeds on the first two days. In a normal contest he would have been a match-winner. Scoreboard.— CANTERBURY First innings 88 Second innings A. Nathu lbw b James . . 1 R. P. Jones c Ormiston b Cederwall 2 D. A. Dempsey c McSweeney b Maguiness ... 18 R. W. Fulton c McSweeney b Cederwall 1 R. T. Latham c McSweeney b Larsen 38 V. R. Brown c McSweeney b James 104 R. J. Hadlee c Vance b Larsen 5 G. K. MacDonald c McSweeney b Maguiness 15 S. R. McNally c Vance b Maguiness 8 A. W. Hart not out ... . 36

C. H. Thiele c Maguiness b Cederwall 49 Extras (lbB, nbB) 16 Total 293 Fall; 4. 13, 25, 27, 107. 119, 158, 188, 206. Bowling.— K. D. James 29. 7, 95, 2 (6nb); G. N. Cederwall 26.4, 4, 65, 3; S. J. Maguiness 31, 7, 82, 3; R. J. Pither 6,1, 20, 0; G. R. Larsen 11, 2, 23, 2 (Inb). WELLINGTON First innings 192 Second innings R H. Vance c Latham b Hadlee 1 J. G. Boyle lbw b McNally 0 T. D. Ritchie lbw b McNally 0 R. M. Ormiston b Hadlee 2 D. F. Oakley lbw b McNally 1 E B. McSweeney c Hart b Hadlee 41 G. R. Larsen c Dempsey b Brown 3 G. N. Cederwall c Dempsey b Thiele 5 K. D. James run out .. . 22 R. J. Pither not out... . 19 S. J. Maguiness c Hart b Hadlee 4 Extras (lbs, nb4) 9 Total 107 Fall; 0,0, 4,5, 5,16, 33, 71, 95. Bowling.— R. J. Hadlee 16.3, 4, 36, 4 (4nbk S. R. McNally 11, 4, 22, 3; V. R. Brown 10, 3, 33,1; C. H. Thiele 6,1, 11, 1; G. K. MacDonald 1,1, 0, 0. Umpires; T. J. Baines and F. R. Goodall.