Cricket: A Hawke’s Bay loyal’s big international moment

Angus Schaw at the Global Super League in Guyana, where he was Central Districts' top wicket-taker and third-best in the six-team tournament. Photo / GSLT20 | Getty Images

Late-blooming cricket professional and Hawke’s Bay all-rounder Angus Schaw has met his first big international challenge by starring in a tournament in the West Indies.

The 31-year-old is still in his first year as a contracted player with Central Districts Stags, but was the third-ranked wicket-taker in last week’s six-team T20 Global Super League in the West Indies.

In a competition to which CD were invited as New Zealand men’s Super Smash champions, he took nine wickets, including a Stags career-best of 3-13 in the rained-out last game.

He and fellow Hawke’s Bay player Jayden Lennox (3-6) opened the bowling and were instrumental in dismissing defending champions, eventual beaten finalists and Bangladesh Premier league side Rangpur Riders for 79.

With the shared points and an earlier win over Australian champions Hobart Hurricanes, CD claimed third place.

The biggest highlight for Schaw was his dismissal of Guyanese star and IPL Rajasthan Royals player Shimron Hetmyer against the home team and eventual winners Guyana Amazon Warriors.

“I’d like to say I set him up,” Schaw said after arriving home in Central Hawke’s Bay on Tuesday.

“But he skied one and got caught (by Hawke’s Bay player Will Clark) on the boundary.”

Hetmyer was out for 12, as Guyana scored 158-6 and then dismissed CD for 92 in just 14.2 overs, but Schaw was able to still smile.

“A week later I was watching him (on TV) hit Australia all around the park,” he said, referencing left-hander Hetmyer’s 38 off 19 balls for West Indies in Kingston, Jamaica.

In that innings, Hetmyer became just the 13th player to score 1000 runs in T20 internationals.

Schaw said other teams in the tournament flew in and out between other professional commitments, but the Stags trained together and arrived and left almost entirely as one team.

“It probably helped us,” he said. “We were together. We wanted to win.”

Four years ago Schaw broke the record for the most matches for Hawke’s Bay and has now passed 100.

Despite his century of games for Hawke’s Bay across three formats, it took a 114-runs innings on his Plunket Shield debutto elevate him into contracted player reckoning.

 Looking forward to a break in Tikokino, and helping father Colin in their stock-buying business, Schaw said; “I’m sort of taking each day as it comes along.

“This time last year I didn’t have a contract, and didn’t think I was going to get one.”

Doug Laing is a senior reporter based in Napier with Hawke’s Bay Today, and has 52 years of journalism experience, 42 of them in Hawke’s Bay, in news gathering, including breaking news, sports, local events, issues, and personalities.