Cricket: Bermuda Triangle takes hold in final

It'll be back in the nets for CD for the one-day campaign where T20s undisputed wicket taker Seth Rance will probably get to bat as well. PHOTO/Paul Taylor

It's the Bermuda Triangle of cricket, never mind how you look at it but a soul-searching exercise is pending to see how runs, wickets, balls, players and even the flaming sun went off the radar at Pukekura Park, New Plymouth.

"There are winners and losers and today we're the losers," reflected CD Stags coach Heinrich Malan after the 14-run loss on Saturday to the Wellington Firebirds. "I'm pretty sure we'll find the faults with this win and loss in a couple of days in a million places but at the end of the day, Wellington played better than us."

In fairness, it isn't up there with the America's Cup in 2015 or the Black Sticks men's meltdown in Rio Olympics last year but it does boggle the mind.

He said CD would look into it in a couple of days before jumping back on their horses for the Ford Trophy one-day competition against Canterbury at Rangiora on Sunday in the hunt for a consecutive treble of crowns.

As gut wrenching as it was for the top wicket taker in Super Smash, Seth Rance, to admit, he echoed Malan's sentiments.

"It's pretty disappointing," said Rance, agreeing they had leaked a few too many runs at the end. "We were quite close to bowling them out for 120 or 130."

At the interval, he revealed CD were convinced they were going to overhaul a do-able target but it didn't pan out that way, with the loss of three top batsmen for two runs.

"We had some of the best batsmen in the world in those three but they got them out nice and cheap and that was the difference."

It wasn't so much complacency or injudicious shots but more the way the Wellington bowling attack came at them.

"The boys tried to be aggressive so it's a tough one. It's devastating."

The Stags went in with three seamers and Rance felt sometimes that came off and at other times it didn't. Potentially he felt CD could have taken Manawatu seamer Navin Patel.

"But then we got bowled out for 159 so taking an extra batsman was probably good."

However, Rance agreed spinners Jeetan Patel, Marty Kain, George Worker and Grant Elliott took the pace off adroitly.

Should CD have batted first?

"Hindsight is a great thing. We could look at every different aspect of it and say we could do things differently but we had a plan that worked and we had them under pressure - seven down for 100.

"In a nutshell, we haven't batted to our potential and they've bowled reasonably well. If they play out of their skins and we don't, then they'll win. They had nothing to lose ... and got their tails up," Rance said.

But Malan was convinced CD weren't aggressive enough.

"I think we moved away a little, even from our bowling perspective ..."

Instead of batsmen getting out to play strokes, they pushed and prodded but Malan felt that was probably down to the grand final jitters, which they would learn from and move on.

He juxtaposed the previous two summers where they finished fourth and fifth to take comfort in reaching the grand final this season.

"To see the boys grow this year and lead the comp by 10 points by the final [round-robin game] was fantastic," Malan said, delighted to see how many players got a stint with the Black Caps.

"In a way, we'd won already, even though we didn't win the trophy [and the $80,000 prize]."