Poverty Bay gave Northland a huge scare in the opening match of the Brian Dunning one-day tournament at Taupo's Owen Delaney Park yesterday.
Although Northland emerged victorious, they cut it fine with co-selector Trevor Penney blaming an average bowling performance for giving his nerves a workout on the boundary.
Put into bat,
Northland's batting line-up did its job on a good batting wicket.
Any hope of assistance the Poverty Bay attack may have hoped for evaporated when Brad Wilson, pushing for a recall into the Northern Districts playing XI, scored a flowing 83.
"It was a very good knock, he was the pick of the bunch out there," Penney said.
Jamie Lee also continued his rich run of form with the bat this season, scoring a colourful 72, with new recruit Qasim Sheikh and captain Ben Cochrane also getting among the runs with 58 and 55 respectively.
The team finished with an excellent total of 306 for six wickets in their 50 overs and turned with confidence to the reply.
But they didn't figure on Poverty Bay batsman Henry Cameron scoring 134 before Steve Schwartfeger finally made the breakthrough and removed him.
The chase was well and truly on at that stage and Poverty Bay looked like a good chance of an upset win until Dan Robinson turned to bowl his final over, the 49th.
He removed the final two tailenders with Poverty Bay finally dismissed for 301, Schwartfeger finishing with 4 wickets for 45 off eight overs and Robinson 2 for 45 off 9.5.
Today Northland play Waikato Valley and tomorrow they take on Bay of Plenty.
