Cricket: Flynn backs himself after gutsy century

Black Caps batsman Daniel Flynn has begun the familiar trek back towards contention for the national side with a classy 135 against the Otago Volts at Bay Oval.

Speaking between innings, Flynn was philosophical about his axing from the squad to play England in the three-test series at home this summer.

"Obviously it's disappointing, but I look at my results and, as a batter, you demand selection by scoring runs," said Flynn.

"I had a poor series in South Africa and it's sort of the way things go. Now all I can do is come back and put runs on the board for Northern Districts, keep my name up there and see what happens."

The Tauranga Boys' College old boy has his sights set on a test recall at the top of the order despite Hamish Rutherford and Peter Fulton acquitting themselves well on a flat University Oval pitch in the drawn first test against England.

"I enjoy batting at the top of the order. I haven't had a lot of experience there but I managed to make a couple of hundreds for Northern Districts when I got back from South Africa," he said.

"Fingers crossed, looking forward to next season, I'll hopefully be batting at the top of the order and pushing my name forward to open in test cricket."

Flynn was pleased to get some runs under his belt after twin failures in his previous innings for the Knights. "It's obviously good to make a contribution. A first innings score of 300 means it was a good surface, though it did start to hold up a little bit so spin played a big part."

Flynn's focus is on seeing out the summer with the Knights while working on developing a more well-rounded game. "I enjoy all three forms and play all three for Northern Districts, but for New Zealand I've played test cricket a lot more than the other two, so I've just got to keep working on my game and improve it so I can contribute in the shorter forms as well."Ben Guild