Wairarapa confident

Selector Ngatai Walker exudes confidence in the ability of his Wairarapa senior men's cricket team to give Hawke's Bay more than they bargain for in their Chapple Cup limited-overs fixture to be played at Rathkeale College on Sunday.
The Bay will start firm favourites, but Walker is so impressed with the batting and bowling capabilities of Wairarapa, that he says a win to them is very much a possibility.
Batting -wise there are very few-if any-players in the Wairarapa squad of 12 who are not capable of getting amongst the runs.
The only question mark there is who will partner Sam Curtis at the top of the order. The odds are it will be either of his Lansdowne clubmates, Henry Cameron-who will also keep wickets- or Aaron Bidlake.They are somewhat different players with Cameron being prepared to wait for the loose ball before launching out and Bidlake being more inclined to take the battle to the bowlers no matter how accurate they may be.
Other Lansdowne players in John Peters,Robin James and Chris Jefferies will probably bat in the first seven, along with Red Star's James Perry who looked in good touch when making 44 for Wairarapa B against their Manawatu counterparts last weekend.
Bowlers Shane Mellor, Richard Wylie, Graeme Williams, Hayden Spierling and Aaron Wilson are no mugs with the bat either, especially Mellor who generally uses attack as the best method of defence.
It is a definite strength of the current Wairarapa line-up that most of the players are more-than-useful in the bowling department too.
Mellor, Spierling and James can all work up decent pace, while Williams is a Bracewell Academy XI medium pacer who has looked good on the club scene. He is the sole academy player in the A team because of the Chapple Cup rules pertaining to overseas players.
Wylie is a recent addition to the Red Star club who has played for Wanganui in the past. He too bowls at medium pace, while Wilson is the one specialist spinner in the squad. Just how much work he gets will obviously depend on the state of the Rathkeale wicket.
The Wairarapa B team will also play Hawke's Bay B at Rathkeale on Sunday and four academy players-Jaco Oustheizen, Gareth Jacobs, Will Stebbings and Ben Hundemark- have been included in that squad. Joining them will be Lee Ewington, Simon Butler, Greg McLeod, Seth Rance, Camus Wyatt (wicket-keeper), Simon Clinton-Baker, Choi Jackson, Peter Sigvertsen and Dane Buchanan.
UMPIRES CUP
The match between the Bracewell Academy XI and Greytown will be the feature of Umpires Cup senior men's interclub cricket matches played in Wairarapa tomorrow.
The academy team didn't show anything like their best form in limited-overs games earlier in the season, but their two wins from as many matches in the longer version of the club game, the Bidwell Cup, suggests they have hit their straps with a vengeance.
That the academy side has the strength to make a decent fist of the one-day game can't be argued. They have any number of batsmen capable of putting bat to ball with telling effect and their bowlers, especially medium pacer Ben Hundemark, have impressed with their consistency.
Greytown though are a side which invariably rises to the occasion. In the likes of Josh Dooherty, Mark Childs, Glen Jonas, Hayden Spierling and Shane Mellor they have a number of potential match winners in their line-up Consequently the academy side will need to be right on their mettle to get the better off them.
If the form book counts for anything Lansdowne should make a one-horse race of their match with Red Star at Wairarapa College.
Sam Curtis, Aaron Bidlake,Lee Ewington, Chris Jefferies , Henry Cameron and Robin James give Lansdowne considerable depth at the top of the batting order and you can expect James and Jefferies to have a big say with the ball as well.
For Red Star to turn around what has been a rather dismal start to the 2004-05 season one suspects their rep players James Perry, Richard Wylie and Aaron Wilson will need to come up with something special.
The two college sides, Rathkeale and Wairarapa, will meet at Rathkeale Oval and there will be no clear favourite here. Players like Camus Wyatt, Dane Buchanan, Alex Treseder and Peter Sigvertsen will be expected to star for the visitors, while Rathkeale has key batsmen in Paul Lyttle, Andy Dodd, Tim Lucas and Simon Clinton-Baker and handy bowlers in Duncan Watt and Craig Aplin.
l Club sides are reminded that scorebooks from senior games should be delivered to the Times-Age by late Sunday afternoon. Reports of matches may not be published if scorebooks are not available.