Return brings good spin

By PETER THORLEY CITY feel they are peaking at the right time of the season to reel in the titles and the recent addition of leg-spinner Tim Anderson to the team, after more than 10 years away, has added to their confidence.
Anderson's first-class background saw him immediately elevated to the Northland side on his return, despite a lengthy lay off from the game. A career change may have brought him north but the 29-year-old is relishing the opportunity to play cricket again.
"My driving motivation for playing cricket has always been to see how good I could be and that hasn't gone away. I still think I can still get a whole lot better and be a better cricketer than I was last time," he said.
Anderson, who's father Robert and grandfather Mac both played for New Zealand, left here to attend the national cricket academy in Christchurch but stayed on to do a business degree at Lincoln University.
He spent summers in Nelson playing cricket and was selected for Central Districts, where he played 16 first class matches between 1998 and 2003.
"One of the reasons I did that was that there were so many class spinners up here (in Northern Districts), I was queuing up behind the Matthew Harts, the Bradburns, the Vettoris, the Jason Spices and Bruce Martins," the 29-year-old said.
After leaving university, he started working for ASB Bank and soon earned a promotion.
"That promotion coincided with my `retirement' from cricket. I got to Auckland and realised that 60-hour working weeks didn't go with cricket and something had to give, and that turned out to be cricket," he said.
Anderson resigned from the bank to head back to Northland to start a mortgage-broking company with his father, better known as "Jumbo" in cricketing circles.
The move means he will be self-employed and can "get stuck back in" to the things he enjoys and will seek to find a better balance between his work and leisure.
"That means that I can fit my work around the things I love and one of those things is cricket ... I guess most spinners generally hit their prime around this age so I'm holding out hope of that."
City will go into the premier grade two-day club cricket final on the weekend as favourites, after winning the one-day final against Kaipara two weeks ago. They were impressive on Waitangi Day against Greerton in the ND Club Championships and have the advantage over Kaipara as the competition leaders - they only have to draw the match at the club's home ground to take out the two-day championships.
Kaipara will have the use of an in-form Brad Wilson this weekend but City will be without their Northern Districts player Joe Yovich, after his recall into the ND side for the continuing State Shield series.
Two-day competition finals. Division 1: City v Kaipara, Cobham Oval; Div 2: Onerahi v Kamo, Kensington 1; Div 3: City-Pompellier v City, Ken 2; Div 4 (50-over) WBHS 3rds v Dargaville HS, Ken 6.