Juniors' wins point to vacuum at top

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Wanganui junior representative cricket coaches Hayden Pudney and Jason Clark could do the local game a massive favour by sitting their excited teenaged players down and telling them "I want you to make a 10-year plan".

While the senior men's team was getting a caning by an innings in New Plymouth in their Hawke Cup match on Sunday, it was a different story back home at Victoria Park where the Watsons Wanganui U12s and U13s hammered their Taranaki counterparts by 95 runs and eight wickets respectively.

Development officer Dilan Raj pointed out the success "highlights a few things" about the sport locally at the moment, namely a dwindling player population at the top end, which is the vacuum that must be shut off as the junior grades are maintaining their usual hunger to succeed.

"Wanganui has a good environment for those players to be nurtured through to the next level," Raj said.

That means keeping kids in the game through to adulthood either local-based or with the desire to return home to play like the Ben Smiths, Henry Colliers and Nick Blundells of this world becomes the riddle that must be solved.

Batting partnerships was the key for the Clark-coached U12s on Sunday as 53 runs were garnered by the openers Adam Lennox (40) and Sam Sheriff (13).

Joel Clark showed good maturity by pushing singles and running hard to keep the Taranaki juniors guessing with their field settings.

His partnership with Huntley's Harry Godfrey yielded another 60 runs, with Joel Clark contributing 47 not out.

Reaching 160-9 from their 30 overs, Wanganui bowled Taranaki out for 65 in the 27th over, with Hunterville allrounder Henry Deans bagging 5-10 off his six overs.

He was backed up by a pretty good effort in the field from a team led by Henry Kilmester and Sam Sheriff.

In the U13s, Wanganui put Taranaki in to bat and immediately had them under pressure with two early wickets.

Fine swing bowling from Kashish Nauhria saw him take 3-8 off four overs in the middle of the innings to reduce the visitors to 44-5.

Kieren McInnes grabbed two quick scalps after the drinks break and allrounder Raemon Teki cleaned up the tail, finishing with 2-10 from his six overs, as the Quinn Mailman-captained team held Taranaki to 94.

Teki turned around to pick up the bat as Wanganui's innings started aggressively, Teki finishing unbeaten on 45 with support coming from Connor Ingram and Cameron Mackintosh, who each scored 14.