HAMISH BIDWELL With all due deference to Lincoln, Central Districts coach Scott Briasco is delighted with his team's draw for the national provincial A tournament, starting today. It may be the home of New Zealand Cricket's High Performance Centre, but three-day matches there rarely develop into an even contest between batand ball. So while bowlers from the other major association teams labour on Lincoln's unresponsive wickets, CD will play two of their three three-day matches at MainPower Oval in Rangiora and Upper Hutt's Barton Oval, where they begin their campaign against Wellington today. "It's certainly a better draw than we've had in the past and playing on, what should be, result wickets, gives us an opportunity," said Briasco from the Totara Lodge yesterday, where convicted murderer Graeme Burton allegedly broke into several cars during his weekend rampage. "We finish here on Thursday, then the players go back to their provinces for Hawke Cup cricket this weekend. We go down to Rangiora on Thursday next week and then on to Lincoln for two one-dayers and another three-day game." After what Briasco described as a "negligible amount" of Hawke Cup cricket having been played so far this season, picking a team for the three-week tournament hasn't been easy. Neither has practising with, the Hawke's Bay players aside, everyone else having to train individually. "It is a little bit of a journey into the unknown. Obviously, these are all competitive guys, so there is a focus on winning but, from my point of view as a selector, this is also to have a look at them and try and determine if they have the ability to step up to the Stags." One A player who's done that before the tournament has even started, is Ruahine Motors Central Hawke's Bay legspinner Robbie Schaw. He was added to the Stags' team for the State Twenty20 matches against Canterbury in New Plymouth on Thursday and Saturday's game against Northern Districts in Hamilton. Tim Weston or Hawke's Bay's Andrew Niblett are also in line for a return to the top team at some stage, should Jacob Oram be rotated into the Black Caps team during the Commonwealth Bank series in Australia. * Central Districts A: Luke Murray, Stephen Murdoch, Tim Weston, Justin Lampard, Brad Patton, Nick Phelps, Andrew Niblett, Scott Baldwin, Jarred Cunningham, Dominic Rayner, Chris Cruikshank, Ben McLennan.
