CRICKET: Barnett's Canadian secret

HAMISH BIDWELL
We nearly had a heart attack. Here we were, claiming in the hallowed SportToday pages that Geoff Barnett's 118 for Central Districts in their drawn match against Otago at McLean Park, Napier, was his maiden first-class hundred and yet there was his cricketarchive.com entry saying the opening batsman already had one.
We were sure that his 94, also against Otago, last summer was as close as Barnett (pictured below) had come to the magical three figures. Well, we were right on that score.
His 118 was his first hundred in the State Championship but not, as it turned out, his first in four-day cricket.
"No, that was for Canada against Kenya in August over in Toronto," Barnett told SportToday.
Stags coach Graham Barlow had mentioned it at the time. But it was kind of in one ear and out the other. Still, it's not a bad yarn. So Geoff, take it from the top.
"Mum was born in Canada and lived there for 16 years or so and I was just looking to go overseas for a working holiday. I decided to email a club over there and then I ended up getting an email from the Canadian Cricket Association, asking if I'd be able to play for the national team," he said.
"At the time, I was more keen on having a break after the season here but, in the end, I played against Bermuda, Zimbabwe and Kenya. The Kenyans were a strong side and they've got a guy, Steve Tikolo, who's a pretty special batter.
"Obviously, with the problems they're having over there, Zimbabwe weren't quite as good and a few of their players had gone over to England to play county cricket. We played a couple of four-day games in Toronto and then played a one-day tri-series over in Trinidad."
And what about the standard of cricket in Canada itself? "In Toronto, it's pretty strong at club level. There's a lot of expats, especially West Indians. It's not quite as strong in Vancouver.
"We play on grass in Toronto and on coconut matting and in Vancouver you play on artificials, sort of like we have here. But they've got a shale under the mat and then they have asphalt under that and when it gets hot, the ball actually leaves an indentation and it does some strange things."
Canada were one of the surprises of the last World Cup in South Africa, where former Victorian and South Australian player John Davison scored the fastest hundred in Cup history and ex-Otago, Wellington and Auckland batsman Ian Billcliff also performed usefully. So is Barnett a lock to join them in the West Indies, come March?
"I wouldn't say anything's a certainty with those guys. They're actually in South Africa and Kenya at the moment playing a one-day series and they wanted me over for that, but I've obviously got a contract over here and couldn't get away.
"I'd say that as long as I can keep scoring runs over here, then I've probably got a pretty good chance of playing in the World Cup."
In the meantime, he and the Stags head to one of their more unhappy hunting grounds, QEII Stadium in Christchurch, for a four-day match against Canterbury, starting tomorrow.