CLUB CRICKET: Mark Orchard returns

When Mark Orchard dropped a bombshell two years ago and asked to be left off Northern Districts' list of contracted players for the 2008-09 domestic season, most pundits were thinking it was the last we'd see of the talented allrounder.
There's a few club teams around Tauranga right now probably wishing he had stayed retired.
Orchard, 31, has popped up at Tauranga Boys' College, with the first-year secondary teacher making a good fist of his comeback with several eyecatching displays with bat and ball in the early part of the season.
Orchard hit 32 and took 2-24 at Nicholson Field on Saturday but it wasn't enough to stop Platinum Pacific Reclad Mount Maunganui winning the Baker Cup Western Bay one-day championship for the second successive season.
Mount beat Tauranga Boys' by four wickets chasing down 191.
Element IMF Cadets ensured that they took the second Western Bay berth in the Northern Districts club finals when they easily defeated a gormless East Bay United, who folded for 32 chasing Cadets' 240.
After eight seasons with the Northern Knights in which he was twice included in Black Caps squads, Orchard pulled the plug in 2008 to chase a career in banking.
"I've had three summers away from it now and I wouldn't say I miss it at all. I miss the mates I had more than I miss the cricket."
A talented allrounder in the mould of Nathan Astle, Orchard bowed out with a first-class batting average of 27.75 (high score 175) and one-day average of 20.80.
At just 28, and with international honours beckoning, did he leave too soon? "How young is too young? I'd been playing (offseason) in England for six years so I'd virtually had six years as a fulltime cricketer, as opposed to guys who might play a summer here then go teaching for six months, or work part-time and stay fresh.
"I was in the (wider) World Cup squad in '07, and picked for a winter tour of Australia, but never quite cracked the big time.
"It's theoretical now to ponder how I would have gone, but I pulled the pin because I didn't think I could be the player I wanted to be."
Orchard is enjoying his stint with Boys' College, acting as a sounding board for schoolboy skipper Joe Carter. With a 10-month-old son Sidney at home, he doesn't aspire to anything higher than Baywide club level.
"I still go out and give it as much as I can - I don't think I'd ever go out and not play 100 per cent - but my bowling's nowhere near as quick as it used to be.
"But I'm not hungry for anything beyond this level anymore. I really can't see myself working Monday to Friday in the classroom and then giving up Saturdays and Sundays as well."
Eves Realty Greerton finished the Western Bay championship in third place after defeating Ultimate Motor Group Te Puke in a low-scoring clash at Te Puke Domain.
After mustering just 124 runs, Greerton's bowlers took charge to roll the home side for 101. Greerton's Craig Budd posted the highest total of the day with 27.