Cricket: Wairarapa out-gunned

Opener Alex Treseder goes after a short ball.

Wairarapa have drifted well off the pace in the 2015-16 zone two Hawke Cup cricket competition.

With two series of matches now completed they have picked up just the one point and they share the bottom of the points table with Horowhenua-Kapiti. Up front on 17 points are Manawatu and Hawke's Bay with Taranaki on 11 and Wanganui on seven.

Henry Cameron and George Deans leave the field at stumps on the first day with the second innings 51-1. They did not return on the second day due to the adverse weather.

Second round games were played last weekend with Hawke's Bay taking away first innings points from their encounter with Wairarapa at Rathkeale College. Wairarapa were bowled out for 91 in their first innings and Hawke's Bay replied with 227. Wairarapa were then 51-1 in their second innings when the first day's action ended and there was no further play in the match because of persistent rain. The end result was a draw, with Hawke's Bay securing seven points and Wairarapa - which had been beaten outright by Manawatu in their previous game - one.

Manawatu racked up 289-8 before declaring their first innings closed against Taranaki. The latter was all out for 119 in their first innings and 109-6 in the second when play ended. Wanganui went on a scoring spree against Horowhenua-Kapiti, declaring their first innings closed at 349-9. Horowhenua-Kapiti made 150 and 201-8.

For coach Neil Perry Wairarapa's performance against Hawke's Bay was better than bare statistics might indicate. He felt there were a couple of sessions during Saturday's play where the home team had the edge over their opposition but, unfortunately, they had not been able to make the most of that situation.

"It certainly wasn't all bad, there were periods where we did well and that's what we've got to build on."

Perry said he was pleased with the manner in which Wairarapa had handled what was a "pretty handy" Hawke's Bay pace attack but he admits it was a different story when they came up against spinner Aljaz Patel, who finished the first innings with 5-20 from his nine overs. Patel, who has played for the Central Stags, hugely impressed Perry with his constant varying of flight and length.

"Our guys aren't used to facing a spinner of that quality and they struggled to get to grips with what he was doing, he was all over them."

In the second innings, however, Patel put down eight overs and didn't pick up a wicket, something which Perry believes was a positive sign for Wairarapa leading into the three Hawke Cup matches they will play early in the New Year.

"We talked between innings of how they should play him [Patel] and we did look more comfortable after that."

Bowling-wise Perry labelled the Wairarapa effort as "mixed". They did not start as strongly as they did against Manawatu with too many loose deliveries enabling the Hawke's Bay batsmen to score freely but Wairarapa improved markedly as the game progressed with the last seven wickets falling for 57 runs.

"We came back strongly and you have to wonder what might have been had we bowled as well at the start as we did at the end."

Perry said the Wairarapa squad would be working hard in the lead-up to their next Hawke Cup game on identifying plans, both individually and collectively, which would enable them to be competitive throughout the two days.