Cricket coach faces the unknown

Wairarapa senior women's cricket selector Grant Perry doesn't quite know what to expect from his team in their limited-overs match with Wellington at Wairarapa College on Sunday.
With their annual Labour weekend tournament being washed out and an intended match in Wellington last weekend cancelled because of a clash with school examinations the Wairarapa squad will be facing their first serious assignment for the 2004 season.
"Obviously everybody is keen to get out there and play but just how ready we are remains to be seen," Perry said.
Also unknown is the actual composition of the Wellington side. The prospects are however it will be more of a development team than a full strength senior side, something which would make good sense considering the youthfulness of the Wairarapa line-up.
In Wendy Hull, Morgan Terry, April Wilton, Rachel Mawson, Amanda O'Reilly, Anna Mahi and Kat Joiner Wairarapa College provides exactly half of their squad while three others-Pip Lynch, Courtney Liggins and Taasha Henson- are students at St Matthew's Collegiate.
Star all-rounder Elizabeth Perry attends Chanel College but plays at club level for the combined Greytown-Lansdowne side as do Mandy Wilson, Katherine Wyatt and Nicole Bouton.
Perry, who played for the Central Districts senior women's team last season, will have a big job to do for Wairarapa with both bat and ball and the same goes for Hull, Terry and Wilson. They are all potential match winners and major contributions from them will be necessary if Wellington are to be put to the sword.
BIDWELL CUP
Lansdowne will be keeping a close eye on the weather leading into the second day's play of their Bidwell Cup senior men's inter-club match with Rathkeale College at Rathkeale tomorrow.
With openers Sam Curtis and Henry Cameron both scoring centuries Lansdowne piled on a massive 324-3 before declaring their first innings closed but if tomorrow's action is washed out they will only share the points with the students, who are due to resume their first innings at 94-8.
It would, of course, take a miracle of major proportions for Rathkeale to avoid the follow on should the match continue as scheduled and in that case it's difficult to imagine them avoiding an outright defeat either. The Lansdowne attack, led by Robin James, is one of the most potent in the senior competition and getting 12 wickets in a day should be no problem to them.
Greytown had a first innings lead of 113 over Wairarapa College but the students fought back to some degree by reaching 52-0 in their second innings, thereby reducing the deficit to 61 runs. The odds must favour Greytown having to bat for a second time but whether Wairarapa College can set them a big enough target to give themselves a chance of outright victory is doubtful, to say the least.
Red Star are in deep strife against an Academy XI which has become a serious contender for Cup honours in 2004.The latter led by 132 runs on the first innings and it's now more a case of whether Red Star can at least make the academy side bat again rather than stop them from taking maximum points.