Cricket departures knock North for six

The bad news for Northland's cricket selectors just got worse.
Top-order batsman Aaron Bradley has joined a long list of defections from the provincial cricket team. He is unavailable for Northland this season.
Bradley, who has moved to Auckland for employment reasons, joins several other first-string Northland players who are unavailable this season.
They include 2003-04 captain and top-order batsman Brett Hood, all-rounder Jamie Burgess and strike bowler Dean Potter, while Potter's new-ball partner David Pinny was also moving to Auckland in the coming days.
Pinny is available for Northland's first two Fergus Hickey Rosebowl games against Waikato Valley in Whangarei on November 20-21 and Counties-Manukau in Pukekohe the following week, but was a doubtful starter after that.
Once a Northland representative plays club cricket out of the ND catchment area, as Pinny was likely to do, they are ineligible to play for Northland.
The first four weeks of Northland premier one-day club cricket has highlighted the dearth of frontline bowlers in the region after Northern Districts strike bowler Joseph Yovich plus Potter and Pinny.
"Over the last two season's Pottsy and David (Pinny) have taken well over 100 wickets between them for Northland, you don't replace those types of guys in a hurry," chief selector Des Thomsen said.
"It would be nice to have someone come out of the woodwork who bowls reasonably quick. There's nobody up here apart from Yovich who bowls quick and it's something Northland Cricket has looked at for a long time."
The batting stocks were less of a worry with Englishman Shaun O'Brien and Welsh county cricketer Alun Evans likely to shore up the hole left by Bradley and Hood. Fringe ND squad member Jamie Lee was also likely to cement a spot in Northland's top order while Brad Wilson was expected back from New Zealand Academy duty in December.
Northland's two Northern Districts players, James Marshall and Yovich, are available for Northland's first two Fergus Hickey games which is a massive fillip for the side.
Potential Northland players currently playing their cricket in Hamilton are pace bowler Daniel Robinson and spinner Cameron Bray.
Bray may well be vying for a Northland starting berth with Whangarei Boys' High School spinner Neil Packiyarajah. Kings College schoolboy Tim Southee and Bledisloe's Mark Tulloch were other medium pace bowlers who were being looked at closely by selectors for first team selection while Brad Chard and Blair Parlane would contest the wicketkleeper's berth.
Northland play their only warm-up match, before launching into the Fergus Hickey Rosebowl matches, against Auckland B on Sunday and with several players unavailable for the Cobham Oval encounter the door is open for fringe players to put their hands up.
Meanwhile Northland B play Hamilton B at Kensington Park in Whangarei on Sunday in their first hit-out of the season also.