Otago celebrate a wicket during the HRV T20 Final match between the Otago Volts and the Wellington Firebirds. Photo / Getty Images.
When three of your top four batsmen are dismissed without scoring you're always going to find it tough to post enough runs and that was the case for the Wellington Firebirds in today's HRV Cup final.
After an impressive win over Auckland in Friday's preliminary final, Wellington travelled to Dunedin
to meet Otago this afternoon with plenty of confidence.
But, after winning the toss and deciding to bat first they limped to a total of 143-9 that was never going to be easy to defend at the batsman-friendly University Oval as Otago battled to a four-wicket win and the HRV Cup title.
Wellington opener Jesse Ryder hammered his quota of runs as he made 30 from 15 balls but the problems came with the next three players below him on the scorecard.
Michael Pollard, Michael Papps and Cameron Borgas were all sent back to the pavilion without providing any work for the scorers and when Luke Ronchi (14) and Theo Doropoulos (5) also departed in quick succession, Wellington looked like they might not even make 100.
