A Central Stag at last – Hawke’s Bay’s Angus Schaw signs on for professional cricket

Years of anchoring the Hawke’s Bay men’s cricket team and becoming the most capped senior representative in the history of the game in the Bay has brought late reward for captain Angus Schaw in signing a professional contract with the Central Districts Stags for the 2024-25 season.

Angus Schaw in 2021 as he was about to break the record for the most matches of Senior cricket played for Hawke's Bay. Three years later he is signing a professional contract with Central Districts for the first-class cricket season. Photo / NZME

The signing was announced by Central Districts on Monday as it continued gathering squads for Plunket Shield four-day games, and the 50-overs-a-side and Twenty20 one-day variants.

“It’s probably been a longer journey for me than most to get to this point,” said Schaw, who has played more than 100 games for Hawke’s Bay across the three formats since his first, as an 18-year-old, in November 2011. “But I really feel I’m ready for it.”

He got his big chance in the first-class arena when he was called into the Central Districts team, aged almost 30, and scored 114 in his first innings, against Northern Districts, played at Mount Maunganui on February 29-March 1 this year.

With CD’s now retired captain, Greg Hay, winning the toss and deciding his team would bat first, Schaw came in at 187-5, Schaw was 52 not out at the end of the first day and ultimately hit one six and 11 fours, seeing the side through to 427 all out in what became a drawn match, with Central taking first-innings points.

He had played three List A (one-day limited overs) and one Twenty20 match for Central Districts, and the century remains his only first-class innings to date.

But he said: “I feel like I’m playing my best cricket now – and I’ve got more of my best cricket in front of me.

“That hundred on Plunket Shield debut really did make me feel like I was good enough to be playing at that level - that I belonged,” he said. “You can’t buy that kind of experience, so I’m really hungry now for more, and being contracted means I can give it 100 per cent commitment to training and playing and seeing what can happen.”

Hawke’s Bay selector-coach Christie van Dyk, heading into his fourth season in his role, will likely have to decide on a new captain for the array of cricket over the different formats, including another defence of minor-associations trophy the Hawke Cup in the new year.

“A lot depends, but I do hope Angus does play all the formats for Central Districts,” he said. “He’s a special character, a good player... he deserves it.”

Van Dyk said there are options if Schaw is unavailable for Hawke’s Bay because of that elevation, many of which were highlighted as the Bay defended the trophy successfully in January-March this year, despite the unsettled selections as players became available the unavailable due to their commitments at higher levels.

Schaw is well set to extend Hawke’s Bay’s traditionally strong place in Central Districts cricket, which will be enhanced by new international-quality training facilities that the squad will utilise at a camp in September. He has spent most of his life playing cricket, a Schaw family sporting tradition, tracing back to six to seven years of Riverbend cricket camps as a youngster and then his seasons in the Lindisfarne College First XI.

But he said that with “other priorities”, he “didn’t really take it seriously” until he was aged 25 or 26.

He won’t be short of Hawke’s Bay company in the CD squad, joining Jack Boyle, Doug Bracewell, Will Clark, Joey Field, Jayden Lennox, Brad Schmulian and Blair Tickner, whose signings were confirmed earlier this month. Central also has New Zealand Cricket contracted Hawke’s Bay player Ajaz Patel.