Cricket: Spinner in for seamer in CD shuffle

CD spinner Ajaz Patel may start his T20 season tonight against ND in Hamilton. PHOTO/Paul Taylor

It's Patel for Patel but not like for like in the only change to the Central Districts Stags' playing squad today.

"Just Ajaz Patel comes in for Navin Patel so we're just adding another spin option to the equation," says CD coach Heinrich Malan before tonight's T20 match in Hamilton.

"If you look at the history of the ground and the wicket, it's always potentially a little bit slower on one side of the block than the other side so it gives us an opportunity to take another look at the make-up of our side," says Malan of Seddon Park.

He acknowledges Pukekura Park, New Plymouth, is a graveyard for bowlers because of its "welcome doormat" dimensions.

In Wednesday's roadkill in the thrilling one-run loss to Otago Volts, only Black Cap medium pacer Jimmy Neesham and CD's Black Caps greater squad member Ben Wheeler were able to stay below 10 runs an over in the slog fest.

"Bowling there is always tough [especially] on good wickets, like the one we played in yesterday, which makes it an even bigger challenge."

Consequently it places preposterous demands on tweakers to dip into their bag of tricks to pull out the discipline of line and length as well as variation and flight.

"If you look at Marty [Kain] and Anaru Kitchen's figures yesterday it's a tough place to bowl so you'd probably be more inclined to play people who bowl seam up but at bigger grounds, [such as Seddon Park], you could potentially play another spinner who can take the pace off the ball and force the batter to make more pace.

"If we wanted to play an extra seamer, we could do that with Navin, who was part of the squad in the previous game, and moving forward having Jazzy gives us our team the make-up," he says of Ajaz Patel who took 1-48 off nine overs for New Zealand XI against Bangladesh in a one-day match at Cobham Oval, Whangarei, yesterday.

A red-ball specialist, the 28-year-old left-armer has taken two five-wicket bags already this summer in Plunket Shield, for a career eighth, but has yet to make his debut in the domestic T20 format this summer.

He was last summer's top wicket taker in first-class cricket and is sitting in second place on 25 scalps, one below former Black Caps spinner Tarun Nethula after five rounds.

The rain-interrupted match yesterday at Cobham Oval would have been a seamer's paradise so that puts Ajaz's figures in perspective.

BOTH TEAMS

■ CD STAGS: William Young (c), Tom Bruce, Joshua Clarkson, Dane Cleaver (wk), Marty Kain, Ryan McCone, Ajaz Patel, Seth Rance, Blair Tickner, Ben Wheeler, George Worker.
Coach: Heinrich Malan.
Assistant coach: Ben Smith.

■ ND KNIGHTS: Dean Brownlie (c), Corey Anderson, Jonathan Boult, Trent Boult, Nick Kelly, Scott Kuggeleijn, Daryl Mitchell, Mitchell Santner, Tim Seifert (wk), Ish Sodhi, Tim Southee, BJ Watling.
Coach: James Pamment.