Greytown in box seat for maximum points

Greytown will fancy their chances of picking up maximum points in their Bidwell Cup senior men's cricket inter-club cricket match with Red Star at Rathkeale College tomorrow.
The southerners held a first innings lead of 96 runs after missing Red Star for just 136 and then racing through to 232 for 8 declared themselves.
Red Star had wiped off 10 of those runs by stumps on the first day without loss, but whether they have the batting resources to build a second innings total which would make Greytown work hard for the outright win is doubtful, to say the least.
Certainly they will need to improve substantially on their first innings effort, which saw aspiring Wairarapa rep Daniel Stonely top scoring with 31 and no other batsmen getting into the 20's.
It was pace bowler Seth Rance ? who has made a fine start to the season with bat and ball ? and part-timer Willie Tatham who did most of the damage for Greytown, Rance finishing with 3-33 off his 12 overs and Tatham coming on at fifth change and in five overs claiming 3-11.
Greytown's first innings didn't exactly start well, stumbling from 9-1 to 59-5, but the decision to drop usual opener Josh Doherty to number seven in the order worked wonders. His first scoring shot was a four and he hit 12 of them, in all plus two sixes, in a knock of 90.
It wouldn't surprise if Doherty also makes an impact tomorrow, but as a bowler on this occasion. He had only the one over in Red Star's first innings but has proved himself a very useful performer in that capacity in the past and a heavier workload must be in the offing
Red Star, for their part, will need top order batsmen like Dion Knight, Jamie Governor Joe Hull, Corey Burling and Stonely to weather the early storm.
The onus will be on them to "dig in" and make Greytown work hard for anything they get?something too few of them managed to do in the first innings.
The scalp of new Wairarapa player-coach Robin James will be foremost on the minds of Rathkeale College when they resume their Bidwell Cup match with Lansdowne at Rathkeale.
The students overcame a rocky start to make a respectable 183 in their first innings and had Lansdowne 92-5 at stumps on the first day with James undefeated on 14.
Already the scorer of a "ton" in one of Wairarapa's pre-season matches this season he is a player with all the strokes at his command and one imagines he would only need to bat an hour for Lansdowne to have a first innings advantage.
For that to happen though he will need to overcome some spirited bowling from a Rathkeale attack which looks about as well-balanced as any in the senior competition. Spinner Simon Clinton-Baker already has three wickets to his credit, and with his Wairarapa position under threat he will be keen to give James and company a further taste of his abilities.
Wairarapa College have a narrow first innings lead over Academy in their Bidwell Cup encounter, but this is a game in which both sides will be rating their prospects of picking up an outright win.
The students will be desperate to see the back of Jamie Perkin when Academy bats a second time, as he has been in grand form all season and the longer he stays at the wicket the better will be Academy's chances of success.
Conversely though, if Wairarapa College have Perkin back in the pavilion early in proceedings, a somewhat brittle-looking Academy batting order will be exposed and the college team could be well on the way to celebrating maximum points.