CRICKET - Crunch time nears as contest tightens

Brothers-in-arms will make a short adjustment before crossing swords on the cricket pitch tomorrow as Whangarei club cricket gets toward the business end of the competition.
Two of Northland's most successful batsmen at the Brian Dunning tournament in Taupo earlier this week, Maungakaramea's Ben Cochrane and Whangarei Boys' High School's Jamie Lee, find themselves on opposite sides of the fence as their teams clash tomorrow at the Maungakaramea Domain.
Lee, who scored three consecutive half centuries in three games at Taupo, and Cochrane, who top-scored for the team at the tournament with 97 not out against Bay of Plenty, will both be pivotal figures in the match - and valued targets for the bowlers.
WBHS leads Maungakaramea by six points with 18 points in the competition but they have the bye next week, making this their final chance of points in the seven-round contest.
The sixth round of one-day matches could determine the finalists - but there's more for team captains to be thinking about, when it comes to the toss tomorrow.
Kaipara Flats, on 24 points, have all but qualified for the one-day final in two weeks but their opposition has still to be determined, putting the onus on City, WBHS and Maungakaramea tomorrow - three teams still in with a chance of reaching the finals.
Unlike last year, there will be no one-day semifinals. Instead, the two top teams will face off in the final.
Rather than take the edge off the competition for minor places, the race for the minor places remains as important as ever, with the team's relative positions also determining seeding for the coming two-day championship series.
The top four teams will battle it out for the Whangarei two-day title, while the bottom three teams, after the one-day competition, will join the top reserve grade team for a second division competition. The rest of the reserve grade teams will form a further two divisions in the competition that starts in two weeks.
City are currently in second place on 18 points and if they can beat Kamo at Cobham Oval tomorrow, they will be tough to catch in the race to the final.
Kaipara will be odds-on to beat Onerahi-Central at Kensington Park but as Onerahi showed by upsetting Bledisloe last week, they are aiming to lift themselves off the bottom of the table - and still have an outside chance of making the top division for the two-day competition.
The winner of the reserve grade semifinal between WBHS second XI and Kaipara seconds will go on to play the winner of Kamo HS and City seconds for elevation in the two-day second division series.