CricHQ Provincial A team dominate to make it two from two

Cricket Wellington Media Release Tuesday 10 January 2017

CricHQ Provincial A team dominate to make it two from two

The CricHQ Provincial A team have backed up their successful T20 tournament in Taupo by winning the National Provincial A tournament in Lincoln. The team has now won two tournaments this season and in the process won an impressive nine white ball matches in a row against their Major Association counterparts.

In the five matches played at Lincoln no team really came close to a dominant Wellington side who got better and better as the tournament went on. Such was the domination that the nearest side to them was a whopping 10 points, or two bonus point wins, behind. The last two games saw Wellington beat Canterbury by the huge margin of 234 runs before topping that in beating New Zealand U18 by a massive 246 runs.

The success of the team was built around all players contributing at various stages of the tournament, as coach Glenn Pocknall noted: “Different players stood up at different times and that’s ultimately what you need to be a consistently good side.” Pocknall also praised Cricket Wellington for making some key changes over the last two years: “Bringing in Lance Dry at this level has been great. He has been winning games of cricket and trophies for a long time now so having someone of his experience coaching the players has been immense. The Wellington A programme and resourcing is expanding every year and it’s pleasing to start to see the benefits of this”.

Pocknall believed part of the team’s success was around the players all wanting to perform for each other rather than playing as individuals. He picked up some ideas around how to do this during the off-season when he and Firebirds head coach Bruce Edgar spent a couple of days of professional development with Greg Chappell and his team at Cricket Australia.

“Greg talked a lot about having good people involved who are willing to go the extra mile for the team.

This message, in various capacities, was really rammed home by the coaches and leaders within this side - both in Taupo and at Lincoln”.

Vishi Jeet was the leading wicket taker at tournament out of all seven teams with 11 wickets, with Iain McPeake closely behind with 8 wickets, 5th overall. Andrew fletcher was the second highest run scorer overall with 260 while Malcolm Nofal was not far behind in 3rd (249). Rounding out the top 10 was Obus Pienaar (191) who was 9th overall.

The final points table and leading run scorers and wicket takers can be found here: http://www.blackcaps.co.nz/domestic/points-tables/mens-provincial-a-tournament

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