Kippax's Firebirds and Wellington Club Cricket Thread

[vcs]

Need Sam Mycock in international cricket soon for more immature name-based hilarity.

Love the spelling "Vengadesh" BTW. So onomatopoeic.

 

[The Hutt Rec]

Iaim McPeake :/

 

[Kippax]

Hutt Hawks kids certainly getting more practice on a '240 tops' wicket on this tour than NZC are ever likely to give them.

I mean we'll probably need at least two alternatives to Auckland's vaunted pipeline of modernist top-order batting, who I hear are planning to cry foul at the first sight of one sticking in the pitch in India's 2023 World Cup.

 

[Kippax]

Auckland's new legspin kid sort of living up to the hype though. Good economy, turned one enough to get a stumping. Try not to lose this one to ND, I guess.

 

[Prince EWS]

I've never seen Ryan Walker bat but he bowls left arm wrist spin, so if he bats left handed too Ashok might not have needed to turn one to get that stumping.

 

[Kippax]

So many guests viewing Cricket Chat right now btw....you think some of them don't even find the special World Cup subbie? Something for James and mods to consider.

 

[Prince EWS]

So many guests viewing Cricket Chat right now btw....you think some of them don't even find the special World Cup subbie? Something for James and mods to consider.

Might be worth situating it above Cricket Chat in the subforum order at the very least, tbh.

 

[Kippax]

I've never seen Ryan Walker bat but he bowls left arm wrist spin, so if he bats left handed too Ashok might not have needed to turn one to get that stumping.

Yeah pretty good random lower levels knowledge from you there, but how about we leave the more casual cricket forum readers properly bewildered by this conversation, with a short video from a Year 10 schools game (18 months ago).

Yeah it's clear to see this kid isn't blessed with Sodhi's height or the quick and flat trajectory, but he will put sufficient revs on it to beat the outside edge for many a stumping.

 

[Prince EWS]

Yeah pretty good random lower levels knowledge from you there

Haha I was actually pretty disappointed with myself for not knowing what hand he batted with.

 

[GoodAreasShane]

I rate Walker, he certainly gives it a rip, tore through South Australia in the national U19 carnival last season. Haven't got a clue regarding his batting though.

Worth creating an dedicated U19 thread or not really?

 

[Kippax]

A pity Ravindra hasn't had a decent tour with the bat yet, Lauchie Johns' batting surprisingly being described as "on a different plane."

Seems to be that Pakistan 'A' series last year that RR liked more than this, with the more professional pitches in the UAE. Predictable turn rather than eccentric and variable turn, 135-140 speeds coming onto the bat quite nicely, but no real risk of encountering anything express at helmet height.

The one-day game on the 10th was won comfortably by Hutt Hawks by 6 wickets. We won the toss and decided to bowl first.

Jamie Gibson and Ed Nutall started very well and in no time had Cricket association of Pondicherry on the backfoot by knocking over the top 3 of the top 4 batsman by the time they reached 36 ruyns off 6 overs. Runs still came at a quick pace considering the pitch. Ben Skilton bowled very tightly and helped bring the run scoring down. Enter Jed and Rachin, they had the opponent on a spin with Rachin beating the bat probably about half the number of balls he bowled and Jed settled to a very good line and length. Consistent pressure from both ends put CAP under pressure and it was great watching our spinners go about doing their job against good players of spin. If our spin bowling department is doing well it’s exciting given how good they play spin over here.

In that period, they clawed back CAP run rate and in the process, Jed picked up 4 wicketsfor 24 runs off 8 overs. The pitch was turning albeit slow paced. CAP tried to string together partnerships but our fielding was top class and the bowlers struck to the task giving away nothing consistently. Once Rachin and Jed had done their respective job, Jamie took over and knocked off couple more wickets to bowl CAP out for 157 off 40 overs. Reasonably good score considering how hard it is to score runs on these decks once the ball is older and the spinners are operating. The spin bowlers quality of CAP has been outstanding, they bowl very tight lines, set the field to each of our batters differently and work with a plan. We have often come up short losing wickets but some have also found a way to beat it, ugly but effective.

Jeet Raval started very well working the ball around and playing an anchor role putting away balls when there was a scoring opportunity presented which was far and few. We lost Devan and Sam Mycock after they spent reasonable time in the middle putting some partnership in the company of Jeet.

Lauchie Johns was on a different plane, hitting runs at will on a tough deck to score on. He used feet to hit over long on and over extra covers with ease. Lauchie never looked in trouble and was scoring at a very good clip. Jeet was out playing on for 31 and Rachin showed some decent form before he shouldered to a ball that took his off stump.

Enter Fergus Lellman, lad from Tauranga and he played extremely positively along with Lauchie. Lauchie and Fergus put on 69 runs in about 14 overs which is near impossible in these conditions. Fergus was positive and used the feet to good effect when in doubt. This was amazing to see considering it’s his first hit with the senior side and in the company of Lauchie he showed very good maturity batting positively. We reached the target in 37.2 overs with Lauchie unbeaten on 60 off 64 balls and Fergus not out 30 off 45 balls. It’s great that we have had a chance to play on these decks which no matter what we do in New Zealand cannot be reproduced.

On the 11th July, we played a 50 over game vs CAP. We won the toss and decided to bat first. Jeet and Gareth started well putting 32 runs in the first 6 overs before Gareth was out LBW. Rachin followed very soon stumped. Troy batted for a while with Jeet putting reasonable partnership but was out paddling the ball caught at short fine leg. Lauchie was caught down leg side by the keeper, getting one too fine. Ridles was out next and Ben Skilton showed very good skills batting very well at no.7 Once Jeet was out caught at slip off an offie we lost wickets in clumps and couldn’t put good runs on board. We could only muster 125 runs off 37.2 overs. Out of the 3 days when we chose to bat first we have failed to bat all 50 overs. Disappointing but in these conditions with every ball a potential wicket taker it’s been hard for both teams to bat long period of time without getting out. It's one of those pitches where no matter how long you are there batting there’s one ball that gets you. It can come the first ball, the 10th or anytime as long as you’re batting. This is great for us, given many times we have visited India but never had such a challenge.

That said our bowling has been fantastic and fielding has been 100% committed. We have caught everything that has come our way and the lads have given everything on the field. We opened the bowling with Iain McPeake and Rachin today. The pitch was turning and Rachin consistently troubled the batsmen with loop and turn. Eventually he picked a wicket bowling the opener out after having bowled good number of deliveries that were close shave.

Riddles, Felix and Jed all bowled good areas asking questions consistently but 128 was not enough for us to defend. Besides CAP today applied themselves and played very well to reach the target. On the positive note Jeet Raval bowled his leggies for the first time on tour and picked couple of wickets. One of them a very good ball that turned miles.

Nate Wiggins picked up a bug on his way to India and hasn’t had much to do on the trip. Finally he came around and bowled 5 overs. After the first couple of overs he hit the strap and looked good.

Some are scoring, some are not looking sublime but they are all learning very fast how to adapt. When not playing they are getting valuable practice on similar grass nets with good quality spinners bowling at them. We are facing spin bowling of high quality on decks that turn plenty and hard to hit around. This is as good as it gets as for challenging conditions in India go.

Our bowling, fast and spin has been outstanding. We have consistently hit the right areas and asked questions. Now we are moving on to t20 leg of the tour, 4 t20s in the next two days followed by 2 more at Anantapur on the 16th.

Chris Nevin joins us from NZ tomorrow that is if the Chennai immigration lets him through after what happened in the semi-finals yesterday.

 

[Kippax]

.

Game updates Men's – 13/07/2019

We played two T20s today, one vs Cricket association of Pondicherry in the morning that we won followed by another vs Madurai Panthers, the franchise that won the TNPL Title last year.

We won the first one by 15 runs and lost the second by 6 wickets.

We had Gareth and Sushant Balajee opening in the first game. We lost both Sushant and Gareth not for much first up followed by Lauchie. In the meantime Troy carried on the good form he has had so far and belted 34 runs off 24 balls in quick time. Meanwhile we lost wickets in a clutter at the other end barring Fergus Lellman. He again showed why we rated him and brought him into the men’s team. He batted brilliantly once Troy was out. Despite wickets falling at the other end he played excellent cricket and played shots both sides of the wickets including a six over long on but the better shot was the lap shot he played in the last over. Thanks to Troy and Fergus we reached 135 off 20 overs. A score more than sufficient we thought on a pitch where run scoring has been a problem through out the week. Jed Wiggins coming in at no.11 hung around with Fergus to put together a partnership of 26 runs in 16 balls for the last wicket.

Ed Nutall knocked over the opener Rohit for a duck and Fergus followed that by knocking over their no.3 batsman soon enough. Ben Skilton bowled with good control and bowled tight. Jed, Sushant and Nate all bowled very tight line and length keeping a tight leash consistently but the best of the lot with the ball was Fergus Lellman again this time with the ball. He picked up 4 wickets to cap an excellent all round performance of scoring 39*(33) and picking up 4 for 21 off 4 overs. Terrific game for a young lad that is yet to turn 18 on the 15th July. Ed again turned up with the ball and bowled an excellent spell of 4 wickets for 22 runs in 4 overs.

We were outstanding in the field again and accounted for 3 runs out that helped the cause as well.

The game against Madurai panthers wasn’t as great for us unfortunately. We lost Iain McPeake early but we started really well though, with Rachin in top form hitting the ball consistently well and using the feet against spinners punishing them over the top. With Troy also scoring at run a ball we thought we were running away with the game when we were 37 for 1 after 5 overs but from then on it went downhill. We lost Troy first, to a slower ball that took out the stumps, followed by Gareth stumped, Fergus bowled, Devan bowled and Rachin as well. Ben Skilton and Ed hung around a bit but we ended up bowled out for 75 in 16.4 overs. Often this happens in India, we will be going fine and then with the older ball the spinners run amok. We lost 9 wickets for 38 runs in 11 overs. The Madurai Panthers bowlers bowled very well mixing up pace, bowling quicker through the air and setting out plans to get our boys. The pitch of course did play a role but this is what you get in India in some places at this time of the year. Great opportunities for our boys to learn from this and we wouldn’t have wanted any other way either.

We showed good fight with the ball no doubt as we always have done on this tour but the total was not good enough to defend unfortunately. Ed bowled 4 tight overs for 13 runs with no wicket, Alex Ridley 4 overs for 16 runs with two wickets, Rachin 4 overs for 12 runs with 1 wicket and Sushant 3 overs for 7 runs claiming 1 wicket. Perhaps if we put over 100 runs maybe we had a slight chance. Madurai Panthers got to the target of 76 runs in the 18th over. It wasn’t a cake walk for them but we did not put enough runs on the board after having a good start unfortunately.

We play a T20 tomorrow in the morning and head out to Bangalore in the afternoon. We have two days break before we resume cricket over in Anantapur.

Meanwhile the lads that didn’t play today had a good work out in the training nets. Jeet Raval batting for hours as he usually loves to ? Chris Nevin has joined us and he will be helping us for the next few days.
Go the Blackcaps… can’t wait for the finals.

Below are the scorecards
Cricket Live data4sports
Cricket Live data4sports

 

[Kippax]

Ah good, Rachin finally blasts an attack for a 63(34). Back to being a probable for India 2023 after all.

http://cricketlive.data4sports.com/scorecard/3495/1

Hutt hawks men's vs Madurai Panthers - T20
We had another close game today, last of the game in Pondicherry.
We lost the toss and were put to bat first. Jeet Raval started well hitting two boundaries of the second over.
Sushant was ticking it over nicely till he was out trying a reverse sweep. We lost Jeet for 10, Devan batted
aggressively hitting some nice looking boundries both sides of the wicket. Sam was LBW not long after.
Once Sam departed, Gareth joined Devan and both went about scoring at good pace before Gareth was run out
calling for a second run.
Rachin batting at no.6 started slowly picking up few singles with paddle and nudges.
Devan departed for a well made 26 off 18 balls with 5 fours.
Alex Ridley and Rachin then went about damage control before Rachin deciding to go for the broke. Go for the
broke he did hitting sixes at will. He was severe on both faster and spin bowlers equally.
Rachin took 28 runs off a single bowler in the 16th over hitting 6,6,6,4,4,2 and then proceeded on to smash few
more sixes. He was out scooping to fine leg before he unleashed brutal array of shots straight, off side and leg
side.
Rachin scored 63 off just 34 balls. Rachin hit 6 sixes and 3 fours in his knock of 63. Ridley then took over and hit
couple over the boundary in the last over to give us our best t20 total so far on the tour of 173 runs off 20 overs.
Madurai panthers lost couple of wickets up front to Mcpeake and Ridley. We had them on 4/43 after 8 overs.
Then their middle order went around hitting some lusty blows both sides of the wickets and got to the target with 2
balls to spare.
Ridley picked up 2 for 26 off 3.4 overs, McPeake 2 for 30 off 4. Rest of the bowlers bowled fine but Madurai
panthers batted well mixing aggression with well taken singles.
The Pondicherry was a mixed bag in terms of results with us winning 2 one day games and losing two. We won
one t20 and lost 2.
All the boys had good opportunities with the bat and the ball. We were sufficiently challenged on tough tracks and
some very good quality bowlers from Pondicherry and Panthers.
We thank the CAP for hosting us and look forward to making Pondicherry a must visit for our future tours both for
men's and the junior teams. It was great to play on decks that got us out of our comfort zones consistently.
We now have two days of rest in Bangalore before we head out to Anantapur to take on Andhra side.

 

[Athlai]

2023

Old Man Guptill
Ravindra
Williamson
Old Man Taylor
Nicholls
Seifert that can keep
Neesham
Santa
Henry/Kuggs/Sodhi
Ferguson
Boult

 

[Kippax]

A 31-year-old Latham misses an Indian World Cup to the aging Guptill eh, quite a big call.

Glenn Phillips' concrete-shoed blasting sort of works in India and the Caribbean and strange places, I guess I'll tip him to make the squad.

 

[Athlai]

Old Man Guptill is like Old Man Logan. Hes out for revenge, Rachin probably buries him under a set of stumps post World Cup victory.

 

[Kippax]

https://cricheroes.in/scorecard/464...FRTIYpU-1rODBlwUGM2BR8Tul9rj4BuqacM#scorecard

Up into Andhra, and up about two Ranji groups in terms of the player pool they can rope into being their opposition. Nothing crazy like a Ricky Bhui appearance for the Andhra XI though.

They've stuffed up the names though it's not Sam Mycock it was Iain McPeake and it was Ben Skilton not Jed Wiggins. Nuttall is Jed Wiggins, Jeet Raval is Rachin. Gareth is Felix Murray.

So yeah Ravindra 3/24 and 4, Raval preparing for Tests soaking up 33 balls for 11, Lauchie Johns tops again with 36, Devan Vishvaka 30, Troy Johnson 29.

 

[jcas0167]

Rain in Queensland affecting what NZC could afford for the U19 team btw -
https://live.cricket.com.au/match/2...-australia-v-new-zealand-u19-series/scorecard

Looks like Thorn Parkes is too old for the U19 World Cup by a mere three weeks, by my judgement. Hopefully he can harness that sort of 'born under a bad sign' Howsie-style rancour and sourness to do ND and NZ proud, like Santner missing out to Mattie Thomas.

I figured Parkes must be too old for the WC but didn't realise he was so agonisingly close to the cut-off. Could the Hutt Hawks try to get him on board for future tours and a move to the Capital for Uni perhaps?

 

[Kippax]

Studying in Otago, Parkes. May still have commitments to a winter sport that would get in the way, although the Hawks did see and rate ND's Fergus Lellman at some tournament somewhere to get him on this tour, so they are casting their net wider than one might think.

They may make a bid for Ashok to join them next tour, now I've suggested it in a comment.

https://cricheroes.in/scorecard/464...CD_u_ih1tGh_ejq8PXz382SVJ5GRyuJ1ANNPxZprXfvas

Ravindra with another good bowling day there (3/43 off 9), more evidence his batting really strongly prefers the ball coming on as he's c&b for 18. Probably the second game on the same surface here as offie Jed Wiggins also came to the party with 4/40 off 8. Chasing 233, Raval with the anchoring 67 in reply, Hawks lose by 8.

 

[Kippax]

Evan Gray is actually their Tauranga-based scout, then Lellmen won a promotion to the Hawks seniors after a good tour for Hutt Hawks U17.

https://www.theweekendsun.co.nz/news/5279-fergus-benefits-from-indian-adventure.html

The usual pre-season preparation for club cricketers is a few outdoor nets and a warm-up game or two in wintry conditions on a team-bonding weekend away.

But 17-year-old Fergus Lellman had the opportunity of a lifetime to play cricket in India for two weeks with the Hutt Hawks team.

The Year 12 Aquinas College student and Otumoetai Cadets opening batsman made the most of his chance to claim the title of best allrounder for his team at tournaments played in Bangalore and Anantapur.

Fergus scored more than 350 runs in 10 innings while up against challenging bowlers on surfaces a world away from his home pitch at Tauranga Domain.

“It was really great to get the volume of cricket and time in the middle,” says Fergus. “I had 15 matches under the belt before the season started here, which is pretty nice.”

He attracted the attention of the Hutt Hawks through former Wellington and New Zealand rep Evan Gray, who is a Tauranga resident. He arranged a place for Fergus on the eighth trip to India by the Hutt Hawks.

Facing Indian spinners in their own unique conditions was a huge learning curve, Fergus says.

“They bowled a lot quicker and flatter through the air, but it still spun. Their control was harder to deal with and you got a lot less bad balls.

“Our spinners had to adapt quickly because if they floated it up they got smoked. Their pace bowlers seemed to have this uncanny ability to get one to skid and then the next ball to pop and there was a lot of variable bounce.”

A highlight off the field was being part of the Hutt Hawks opening 22 small houses as part of the Rural Development Trust in Anantapur.

Fergus says it was great to be able to see the joy on the faces of the people when they saw their new homes.

Describing it as an “eye-opening” place to visit, Fergus and his young team mates saw plenty of unforgettable sights while travelling between games, which is all part of the experience of being in India.

On his return to Tauranga he was delighted to gain his senior debut for the Bay of Plenty over Labour Weekend against Hawke’s Bay. He has started his second Baywide Premier season for Otumoetai Cadets with some encouraging innings with the bat.

“I was pretty happy with that debut for the Bay,” he says. “I didn’t get a bat but it was great to be around the team and it is a goal of mine to grab a spot in the team.

“I want to go well with Bay Development this year and see how far I can get.”