Cricket: HB men advance to vital face-off

Hawke's Bay seamer Liam Dudding celebrates taking the wicket of dejected Taranaki batsman Liam Muggeridge trudging off Nelson Park, Napier, yesterday in the zone 2 Furlong Cup qualifier. Photo / Duncan Brown

It's a do-or-die match against Manawatu in a fortnight in Napier in the battle for minor association cricket supremacy for the Hawke's Bay senior men.

The Pay Excellence-sponsored Bay team yesterday crushed Revital Fertilisers Taranaki by eight wickets at Nelson Park.

"We'll put in a lot of hard work to try to get everyone up to the same level for the Manawatu game," said Bay coach Colin Schaw before they host the Michael Mason-coached side on January 30-31.

Yesterday Giliam Christoffel Pretorius made his dream debut for the Jacob Smith-skippered Bay, taking a 10-wicket haul, five a piece in each innings, to reduce Taranaki batsmen to clients going in and out of a bank at peak hour.

"He's just brought a new dimension to our game," said Schaw of the Ruahine Motors Central Hawke's Bay import player from South Africa whose spin proved to be too much for Taranaki as they were skittled for 168 runs and 19 balls to spare in their first innings.

Only CD batsman Dean Robinson showed some ticker, undefeated on 63 as an opener.

However, Schaw said while the 24-year-old, right-arm leg spinner from Pretoria proved to be a handful the bay seamers of Kurt Richards, Liam Dudding and Ben Stoyanoff had provided an ideal platform to stifle the batsmen.

The Bay were all for 168 runs to claim first-innings points with Taranaki bowler Ryan watson claiming a five-wicket bag.

"Ryan knocked off our top order but Scott Schaw and Kurt Richards batted well for a good partnership," he said after No 7 Schaw scored 47 runs from 49 balls while No 8 Richards was unbeaten on 25.

It was an almost carbon-copy act in Taranaki's second dig when Pretorius took five more scalps after the seamers softened them up for 138 all out and just Sam Fastier hanging around for 55 runs.

Coach Schaw was delighted with his men's catching off the legspinner's deliveries, revealing they had only grassed one in the entire weekend.

"It was about 20 minutes after lunch so we elected to open batting with Indy [Indika Senarathne 17 runs] and Jake [Smith 31 runs] so they had put the game to rest when they left," he said after Rupert Young and Matt Edmondson wrapped up the victory.

Schaw as delighted to have taken maximum points after rained robbed them of that against Horowhenua-Kapiti before Christmas.