Cricket: Solid HB happy to loan talent to rivals

Stevie Smidt. Photo / Paul Taylor

The talent pool in cricket is overflowing but the spill will not run down the guttering, if the Chapple Cup selection is anything to go by.

Pay Excellence Hawke's Bay senior men's coach Mathew Sinclair has loaned squad member Angus Schaw to Horowhenua-Kapiti after naming his 13 players for the Central Districts one-day tournament starting at 10.30am in Napier on Friday.

"It is a CD weekend and that hasn't changed," player/coach Sinclair said yesterday of a Bay team that includes eight players with first-class experience.

The Stevie Smidt-skippered side are the defending champions and play the Ewen Thompson-coached Horowhenua-Kapiti first up in the three-day tourney at Nelson Park.

"This is the benchmark for representative players who want to move on to CD duties," Sinclair says, who is all for Schaw to be playing at Chapple Cup level.

Players also have the opportunity to make the cut for the Hawke Cup campaign from next month as well as the CD A programme.

Schaw's brother and CHB captain, Scott, missed out in the Bay team. Jeremy Kuru and Liam Rukuwai were unavailable due to injury.

Sinclair said he had appointed Smidt captain despite the presence of Stags skipper Kruger van Wyk because he was looking at the Hawke Cup when CD players won't be available.

"With myself, Kruger and Kieran [Noema-Barnett] around Stevie will learn heaps."

He wasn't sure what Black Cap Doug Bracewell's bowling load was likely to be but he would start the Taradale allrounder as a batsman when he returns from training at the Lincoln camp, near Christchurch, this week.

HB team: Stevie Smidt (c), Doug Bracewell, Graeme Tryon, Mathew Sinclair, Ajaz Patel, Andrew Mathieson, Indika Senarathne, Luke Kenworthy, Ben Stoyanoff, Charlie Robson, Kruger van Wyk, Kieran Noema-Barnett, Luke Wright.