STARTING: Jesse Ryder trains in the nets at Nelson Park, Napier, yesterday. PHOTO/Warren Buckland
THE music was blaring from a ghetto blaster, the batsmen were humming as they launched shots into orbit but the nearby residents at Nelson Park, Napier, were left scowling as white balls peppered roofs and came precariously close to shattering windows.
"It's the fun season so we had to have a little bit of a whack. It was good to hit downwind today as it made the big ones go a little further," a grinning Ben Wheeler said after depositing one of a few balls into house gutterings during the Central Districts Stags net session yesterday.
Wheeler said with weather taking its toll in New Plymouth in the opening two rounds of the McDonald's Super Smash twenty20 competition the balmy Bay temperatures would perhaps offer a cool, happy medium for the 7.10pm match against the Otago Volts at McLean Park Napier, today.
"It's always easier in the nets but when you're batting out in the middle it's always a tough ask and they have some good bowlers so it'll be a good challenge," said the 25-year-old Black Caps allrounder from Blenheim.
Wheeler has had a few injuries in the past so he had missed out on white-ball T20 cricket.
"It's nice to back here playing because it's a little easier on the body when you have to bowl just four overs in a match."
Undefeated CD have started well with a victory and a draw.
"Once you get that feeling you seem to win those tight ones as well out of nowhere so we'll just keep trying to win whatever way we can, I guess."
Wheeler said Black Caps Doug Bracewell would be a massive loss, not just as a quality bowler but as a middle-order batsman after a knee injury ruled him out, at least, for the rest of the T20 campaign.
So who has CD coach Heinrich Malan brought in as an allrounder for Bracewell?
"That's a million-dollar question, isn't it?" Malan responded on Bracewell, who batted at No 5 and opened bowling.
"It's when someone like Dougie doesn't play that you miss that one skill that George Worker did for us, finishing off the other night when he bowled his four [overs]."
Malan said CD were happy with where Worker was as a bowler.
"He's done that for us with [spinner] Marty Kain but Blair Tickner gives us another option in the 12 after he was in the first two rounds so we're just making sure to get our balance right in playing an extra batter and having three seamers and two spinners or playing an extra seamer and having four seam options and two spin ones."
Ex-Black Cap allrounder Jesse Ryder would have been a fit of sorts but yesterday his left calf was still heavily strapped as he batted in the nets.
Malan gave Ryder a thumbs up to bat but not bowl.
"He's confident to play and I'm pretty confident to have him on the top of the order to showcase his skills so it's all good."
Ryder, 32, passed his fitness test yesterday, as he did before the last round but failed to start in New Plymouth last Saturday.
"He was running around and doing kinds of stuff for the physios and we put him through his paces so he's come through that and we feel he's okay to have a crack," Malan said.
Seamer Blair Tickner is likely to come in especially if the wicket offers a greenish tinge that invariably flattens into a driveway. Seth Rance will open with Wheeler.
Twenty20, he says, is a lottery after taking a half of each game from the two previous rounds.
"The weather gods have been with us on the east part of the island so, hopefully, we can get out there tomorrow night at 7 o'clock to play some good cricket."
While import Mahela Jayawardene hadn't played much cricket for his title-winning Dhaka Dynamites in Bangladesh , Malan said the Sri Lankan batting maestro had been training hard although the conditions there were different from here.
"He's never shy of having some extra work done, which is good as a pro leading from the front," he said of Jayawardene who is most likely to be at first drop although he could end up opening with lefty George Worker to blunt the ball for another lefty and big hitter, Ryder, to come in to play more freely.
Malan said the batting line up would be made final depending on what the opposition would bring to the park so CD could adapt accordingly.
The Volts pipped the Northern Districts Knights by two runs in a rain-hampered affair in Dunedin on Wednesday.
"They've got a half decent side and the people who they've got in there have a lot of experience in the top of the order from a batting perspective."
Black Caps Neil Wagner and Jimmy Neesham were pivotal with the ball so it was a good opportunity for the Stags to challenge themselves against such calibre players, he said.