CD v Canterbury
Ford Trophy
Saxton Oval
NO FIELDING drills. No throw downs in the nets. No slip catches or rolling your arm in the hope of knocking over a solitary stump, either.
Nah, none of that because Devon Hotel Central Districts Stags coach Alan Hunt is of the firm belief that sometimes less is more.
Consequently captain Kieran Noema-Barnett and the Stags caught a flight back to Nelson from Wellington yesterday morning only to spend the rest of the day putting their feet up.
"We are definitely trying to rest," Hunt said yesterday before tomorrow's third-round Ford Trophy one-day match against the Canterbury Wizards at Saxton Oval, in Nelson.
"We're having three games in a week so there's only so much you can get out of them," he said after the defending champions opened their campaign with an 84-run defeat to the Black Caps-heavy Northern Districts Knights at Saxton Oval on Tuesday.
On Thursday, the Stags claimed a nailbiting 10-run victory over the Wellington Firebirds at the Basin Reserve but Hunt emphasised his weary troops were on the paddock from 9am to 6.45pm that day.
Having just come off the gruelling Plunket Shield campaign as the 2012-13 champions last Saturday, it seems the boys are beginning to feel like they never got out of the four-day grind.
Don't mention anything about home-ground advantage to Hunt and company because they certainly don't see it that way.
"I don't want to sound negative or anything here but they [Canterbury Wizards) know the ground well, too, so it's just another game for us."
For the record, the Gary Stead Wizards mesmerised the Stags twice at Saxton Oval during the HRV Cup Twenty/20 campaign which CD would have tried to erase completely from their memory bank after finishing dead last.
Primarily Hunt believes they have to make the cut for the top four so no one is losing sweat over the opening-round loss or the skin-of-the-teeth victory which suggested they had a lot of work to do.
Ideally, Hunt feels if CD have wickets in hand in the last 10 overs, everything will take care of itself.
With the International Cricket Council introducing the four fielders and two bouncers rule, the one-dayers have become high-scoring affairs akin to T20 matches.
Asked if the new format favoured the bowlers or batsmen, Hunt said the latter.
"There's more boundaries and fewer singles."
CD STAGS: Jamie How, Jeet Raval, William Young, Mathew Sinclair, Ben Smith, Kieran Noema-Barnett, Kruger van Wyk, Adam Milne, Tarun Nethula, Ben Wheeler, Marty Kain, Andrew Mathieson.