National under-15 girls' cricket tournament in Whanganui standings

White Fern Hannah Rowe aims to give her CD girls a leg up to higher honours as manager and mentor during the Cricket Express Girls Under-15 National tournament in Whanganui. PHOTO/Bevan Conley

The Central Districts girls have live motivation to perform at this year's Cricket Express national under-15 tournament in Whanganui.

The annual tournament is the main part of Cricket Whanganui's Festival of Cricket extravaganza and the nursery to develop and prepare the girls for higher honours, ultimately to White Fern status.

The CD girls have a daily reminder with manager Hannah Rowe acting as mentor alongside coach and former Whanganui women's captain Esther Lanser.

Rowe has been a White Fern since 2015 after honing her skills at this very under-15 festival beginning in 2011.

"I've been through this nursery and it's a great platform to learn and reach higher levels," Rowe said.

"In 2011 I played for CD in the under-5 tournament and also for Manawatu in the under-18 team during the same festival. Like many of these girls my aim was to become a White Fern and fortunately that happened for me in 2015 when I was 18. I'm 21 now and still with the White Ferns."

The seam bowler enjoys giving back and meeting and getting to know the young girls, passing on her skills and experiences in the hope of sparking passion for the game and an end goal.

"This tournament is definitely a pathway to higher things, including the White Ferns. It's a great opportunity for the girls to compete of girls a similar age and not against boys as it often is in their home regions.

"I am impressed with the talent I've seen so far and I really enjoy mentoring the girls and seeing their passion and love of the game develop," Rowe said.

Her presence has appeared to have sparked something in the CD girls who began the tournament on Monday afternoon with a clinical 7 wicket victory over Northern Districts.
Northern were sent into bat mustering 105/10 in 27 of the 30 over match.

Vici-Rose Green, at first drop, fared best of the Northern batters top scoring with 29.
Medium fast right-armer Ella Southey did the most damage for CD taking four wickets for just nine runs off five overs.

In rely CD easily reached their target of 106 with the loss of only three wickets in the 20th over with openers Jessie Hollard (25) and Elizabeth Cohr (22) setting the platform.

In other day one matches defending champions Auckland beat Canterbury by three runs with opener Prue Catton scoring a half century (53) and Grace Ansell retiring on 51 for Canterbury.

Wellington beat Otago by two wickets despite Angelique Peyroux retiring on 55 for the southerners.

In the Tuesday morning session CD fell short against Auckland (137/8) despite Cohr taking three wickets for 21, including the scalp of Aucklan's to scorer Libby Easterbrook on 27.

Canterbury (189/3) bounced back with an effortless win over Wellington (77/10) with opener Ellena Firth retiring injured on 55 and Ansell again scoring a half century (55).
Molly Stagg was the best of the Auckland bowlers taking three for one run from two overs.

Otago (148/10) beat Northern Districts (142/9) by six runs.

Play continued into Tuesday evening and will again on Wednesday if the weather allows.