Cricket: ND Knights flog CD Stags in Napier to show why they are Super Smash T20 leaders

Ouch! CD Stags seamer Ryan McCone's face tells the story after the ND Knights batsmen ran amok with their willows in at McLean Park, Napier, tonight. Photo/Photosport

It was simply total carnage at McLean Park but someone forgot to notify the weather gods to book a 40-minute spell of sun strike after Northern Districts Knights ran amok with the willow in Napier tonight.

The oil canvas-streaked clouds, with the floodlights blazing even before the Burger King Super Smash Twenty20 game had started at 7.10pm, set the eerie stage for the table-topping Knights to wallop the Central Districts hosts by 131 runs.

It was another harsh reminder of why the venue holds the reputation of a mythical elephant's graveyard for bowlers whose epitaphs seem to be inscribed well before they mark their run-ups.

If it isn't bad enough already it makes one wonder why the boundary rope at the Hastings City end of the park was shortened by almost five metres when the likes of Brett Hampton and Daryl Mitchell were handsomely clearing the sponsor's "whopper" hoardings in front of the Chapman Stand.

The rampant Knights had brought up 200 runs with 16 balls remaining before going into the innings break at 5-230, only to reaffirm the status of a wicket that only two days earlier had frustrated and stifled the Black Caps to 157 runs in their eight-wicket loss to India in the opening ODI here.

But in the fashion of the quick and the dead plot, the spittle shiners kept pulling out just about every trick in the bag with little returns.

The Stags employed wide yorkers to extract dot balls, knuckle balls, carrom balls and slow bouncers but that didn't stop the haemorrhaging.

In fact, when they were bludgeoned out of the park - twice over the Graeme Lowe Stand - they tended to return with wides to show how much mental scarring they were trying to suppress while reloading.

The umpires had to summon the fourth official three times for a used ball in the game after CD batsman Joshua Clarkson had broken the trend to loft a ball on to the main Harris Stand in CD's desperate run chase.

However, all of that shouldn't detract from the fact that the Knights were far more adept at playing the game of batsmen than the hosts tonight.

The Dean Brownlie-captained ND deserved to win and showed why they were holding a six-point lead over the Stags before the game.

A beaming Brownlie said it was pleasing to see the Knights clinch a game where they performed equally well with the ball and bat.

"It's great to see and we'll be working to keep it there," he said, to signal their favouritism to claim the crown.

ND Knights batsman Brett Hampton goes on overdrive to pummel CD Stags bowlers in Super Smash T20 match at McLean Park, Napier, tonight. Photo/Photopsort

Hampton clubbed a match-high 64 runs from 31 balls, including half a dozen sixes and four boundaries, while Mitchell was even more ruthless in scoring 61 runs from 23 deliveries, matching the former in sixes and one fewer boundary after Brownlie ( 40 runs) and Seifert (35) provided the platform for bumper launch.

The Knights bowlers were equally clinical. Test seamer Neil Wagner and fellow new-ball merchant Scott Kuggeleijn bamboozled the CD top-order batsmen for 2-17 and 2-30, respectively.

However, former Black Caps and Auckland Aces/CD spinner Tarun Nethula was the pick of ND bowlers with 6-23 from 3.1 overs, including sitting on a hattrick, to eclipse his previous best figures of 4-18 in the T20 format.

Brownlie said the massive total had helped in prompting the Stags to try to stay in touch with a demanding 12 runs an over although the bowlers had done their homework.

"We did that in taking tough lengths and lines to pull it off today," he said, pleased to have secured a home final although complacency wasn't going to set in with two games left to play.

Brownlie said the Knights were mindful that when they did the basics right they could beat anyone on their day although the T20 beast could easily turn on them because of its lottery nature.

Conversely, Bruce had a hectic day behind the stumps in the absence of regular wicketkeeper Dane Cleaver and, not surprisingly, at times appeared to resort to trying too many variations with myriad bowlers in a futile exercise to snare snappy wickets to turn the pressure on to the aggressors, after he won the toss and chose to bowl.

It's a case of let's dance for ND Knights wicketkeeper Tim Seifert after spinner Tarun Nethula claimed a career-best six wickets in the Super Smash T20 format in Napier tonight. Photo/Photopsort

In his defence, it was a case of damned if he did and damned if he didn't although, to his credit, he thought outside the square to open the bowling tidily with spinner Dean Foxcroft.

After three tight overs, opening seamer Ben Wheeler released the pressure valve as Brownlie took a shine to his goodish length delivery for a six before two wides boosted the damage to 15 runs.

At the other end, medium pacer Ryan McCone rolled his arm with interest for five runs to enable Blair Tickner to change ends but that experiment failed because the speed merchant haemorrhaged 16 runs from the Napier City end of the park.

Black Caps test spinner Ajaz Patel stitched up the wound for a miserly eight despite conceding a boundary off his first ball but, akin to veteran Kieran Noema-Barnett's miserly nine runs, that was just the lull before the storm.

Frankly, just like the Stags' sorry looking scoreboard of 99 all out in 14.1 overs, the bowling figures read like a crop damage report following a tropical cyclone.

Only two CD bowlers - Foxcroft (1-18 from two overs) and seamer Blair Tickner (2-37 from 4 overs) - kept below the 10 runs an over ceiling.

Noema-Barnett, Wheeler, McCone and Patel took some stick.

On the other hand, the Knights' counterparts were all below eight an over, bar Black Caps aspirant Corey Anderson who went for a match-high 15 and over.

As for CD batsmen, Foxcroft and Clarkson shared 23 runs each as the highest run scorers. Wheeler was the only other batsman to post double figures with 11 runs.

In fact, some despondent fans started leaving the stands when CD were hovering around the 75-run mark in the 10th over of their allotted 20 overs.

However, not all is lost for the Heinrich Malan-coached Stags who were without Black Cap seamer Doug Bracewell and swing merchant Seth Rance.

The defending Plunket Shield champions will have to, like Black Caps skipper Kane Williamson did, put this battery and assault behind them to go back to the drawing to revise another blueprint.