Cricket: CD win toss but fail to capitalise

NOT ENOUGH: Dane Cleaver (left) celebrates the wicket of Michael Davidson with Jesse Ryder, Ben Smith and Ajaz Patel at McLean Park, Napier, yesterday. PHOTO/Duncan Brown

LAUGHTER, at least for now, is the best medicine for the Central Districts Stags after they crashed to a six-wicket defeat to the Canterbury Kings in Napier yesterday.

In keeping with tradition, the Devon Hotel-sponsored Stags skipper William Young won the toss and elected to bat at McLean Park but the returns of 167 all out with 45 balls left in the account were well shy of a decent one-day total to defend the Ford Trophy in the opening round.

"I think we probably got caught in the trap of thinking it was too flat and then not applying [ourselves] although even their batsmen didn't come out from ball one to play a shot," said Dane Cleaver in mitigation after the Cantabrians eclipsed the total with 168-4 with 50 balls to spare.

Roneel Hira, with an unbeaten 70, and Todd Astle, 41 not out, forged an unbroken stand of 109 for the fifth wicket to stop the rot for the visitors.

"They really had to get themselves in and strike rate was nowhere near what you'd get from a one-day game," said Cleaver, believing the wicket sort of lulled batsmen into a false sense of security that it was benign.

However, the CD wicketkeeper also felt "some really bad shots as opposed to putting our heads down" didn't help their cause.

"It's not the way to start but where we went wrong we can learn from it and show some application to go on to make some big scores."

Cleaver put it down to "one of those wickets, looking at it you had to bat first if you won the toss" although the Kings had the benefit of picking the mood of the wicket while watching CD bat.

The young Stags were toiling and middling the ball well at training so there was no reason they wouldn't bounce back "because it's only our first game".

While it was often impossible to defend a paltry total the CD bowlers ensured the Cantabrians didn't get off to a flier with the bat.

"We showed a little bit of fight and the boys bowled well up front to put the ball in good areas," said the Manawatu cricketer who top scored for CD with 33 runs but comically went out when he slipped from an Andrew Ellis delivery but did not recover quickly enough to cut the chalk with his bat as Kings wicketkeeper Cameron Fletcher stumped him.

The Stags have introduced the "Dick of the Day", "Grafter of the Day" and "Player of the Day" awards this summer in the format.

"It's something to add the team culture and at the end of the day give the boys something to laugh about."

Not surprisingly Cleaver, who turns 24 on New Year's Day, picked up the dick award.

"The boys thought it was pretty funny but I didn't," said the bloke who had to slip on a skimpy fluorescent green Borat swimsuit in the changing room for a cellphone photograph that was then forwarded to his girlfriend, Kelsey Mangin, of Palmerston North, who was watching the game at the park yesterday.

Bevan Small collected the grafter award for chugging into the wind as a bowler and taking a hit on his forearm that Cleaver thought was a superficial injury.

Opening seamer Seth Rance got the player of the day award for his 2-29 off 10 overs, including two maidens.

New Canterbury captain Ellis said they would have batted first on a "pretty good wicket" had they won the toss as well.

"The wicket's pretty good so I didn't expect them to get that sort of total but we bowled very well," he said although he felt it was a little tougher to score off if bowlers were hitting a good length.

"It was quite hard to get it away if you bowled nice and straight.

"It was quite hard to manoeuvre the ball around so there were quite a few dots between the boundaries," Ellis said, hailing Edward Nuttall, Todd Astle and Hamish Bennett as "top quality players who, when they get it right, can do good things".

He was equally delighted with the Hira-Astle partnership that stopped the rot and gradually turned the tide.

"We didn't start too well against CD last year so we're happy to reverse that trend this year."

In other games, Wellington beat ND by five wickets and Auckland pipped Otago by two wickets.