Observations on Batting Techniques, Coaching & Fitness

the last few years had a lot to live upto. Afterspending five seasons with the U17 team inNapier the coaching team of Randall Toddand Nick Craig were given the envious taskto coach the U19 team and early on theymust have thought they were on ‘honeymoon’as the team dominated proceedings earlyin winning both their three-day games andstarted positively by winning the first two onedayer’s, however, the team then lost the nexttwo one day games but were still comfortablyahead on the points table. This counted fornothing as the top two teams in the tablethen had to play a final to decide the winnersand therefore the Auckland team met Otagowho they had lost to two days previously, inthe final on the Bert Sutcliffe Oval. Aucklandwon the toss and then amazingly sent Otagointo bat on a wicket which looked tired andold and to make matters worse, Otago set aformidable target of 287-9 off their 50 overs.Most of the people at the tournament wouldhave given the Auckland team no chance towin this game, however, somebody forgot tomention this to the Auckland team as theyset about to knock the runs off and win thegame by 3 wickets with one over remaining.This truly was an amazing run chase whereat least six of the batsmen contributedheavily. This final day heroics clearlyepitomised the work done in the winter hadpaid dividends! Add to the win the selectionof Jeet Raval (who subsequently pulled outdue to residency/qualification issues), GregMorgan and Michael Guptill-Bunce into theNew Zealand U19 team for the World Cup inMalaysia as well as Rory Christopherson asa non-travelling reserve, the entire campaignwas a success.The boys’ U17 Team performed admirablyat the national U17 tournament in Napierand finished a very creditable 2nd, quiteremarkable considering the new coachingteam of Pat Cole as coach and Ryan Scivieras manager/co-coach, neither of them hadcoached representative teams for Auckland atany level and both were called in at the ‘lastminute’ after other interested coaches pulledout late in the piece. Pat is an avid coach whocoaches the North Shore Premier team andRyan coached a district U17 team pre-xmas,astonishing considering he’s only just turned21 years of age. On the field the team wereprobably surprised at the finish considering apoor middle part of the tournament, however,in the last two one-day games againstWellington and Central Districts they pulledof two marvellous wins chasing down bigtotals (254 and 224 respectively) which atthis age group shows lots of mental aptitudeand once again highlighted the ‘The TopTwo Inches’ philosophy worked upon duringthe 2007 winter. Craig Cachopa and JimmyNeesham were rewarded for their consistentperformances by being named in the nationalU17 tournament team.The boys’ U15 team travelled to Rotorua topartake in the North Island U15 tournamentand with a new coaching team of HaydenGardner and Keryn Carberry as co-coachesthere was a fair amount of frustration amongsteverybody at the batting performancesthroughout the tournament, however, thisdid not hamper the boys enthusiasm as theybowled and fielded exceptionally and althoughthe batting line up boasted some good playersthe consistency was never quite there and theteam finished up in 3rd position.The primary schoolboys’ teams were leftin the cold this season as their traditionalrivals Northern Districts decided againstplaying Auckland for reasons of their own.However we thought it important to selectthe usual two teams from our district primaryschoolboys’ tournament and decided uponplaying each other in a round robin formatwhich saw the ‘White’ team appropriatelycoached by Nick White winning one gameversus the ‘Blue’ team (which was coached byShoruban Pasupati) and the 2nd game endedin a dramatic tie!. Late in the piece NorthernDistricts offered each Auckland team a gameversus a selected training group they hadidentified at their district tournament whichwas much appreciated and both Aucklandteams managed a win against their NDcounterparts in Hamilton. A standout at thistournament was David Winn from the HowickPakuranga CC/Manukau area as he notchedup one century and another score of 86 in thethree innings he had.The women’s game has prospereddramatically in Auckland and it is by no