Wellington coach Vaughn Johnson couldn’t hide his preoccupation with today’s bizarre events at Carisbrook as his team’s Shell Trophy match with Auckland, which flared into vibrant life yesterday, faded to end in a drawn
Steve McMorran11-Jan-2001Wellington coach Vaughn Johnson couldn’t hide his preoccupation with today’s bizarre events at Carisbrook as his team’s Shell Trophy match with Auckland, which flared into vibrant life yesterday, faded to end in a drawn.Johnson had a sense of the delicacy of Wellington’s lead in the Trophy competition – four points before this round began – as Otago and Northern Districts resorted to extreme methods to resuscitate their game when its vital signs were no longer measurable.He had also developed a notion of the rich injustice of cricket when it seemed one of the two conspirators at Carisbrook would take outright points from their muddied match to narrow or erase Wellington’s lead, while this game, which had been so full of spirited endeavour, would end without the result it deserved.Wellington and Auckland had produced three days of absorbing, positive and closely competitive cricket to leave the match brilliantly poised at the start of this final day. When Auckland declared this morning at 347/9, leaving Wellington 302 runs to win from 93 overs, the match seemed even more acutely primed to deliver a compelling finish. Consider, Wellington had scored 301 from 88.4 overs in their first innings, so Auckland’s declaration was unusually generous.But rain robbed the match of its entire middle session – 22 of its last 66 overs – and the finish that had loomed so enticingly was flushed away with the afternoon showers. Wellington had been 66/1 at lunch, still needing 236 runs in the last two sessions to take outright points and fully prepared to throw all of their resources into that chase.But the rain began stealthily during the lunch break and as it fell intermittently until tea, it made off with any initiative either side might have enjoyed. Wellington returned to the field after tea, needing the same number of runs – 236 – but from only 44 overs. The task wasn’t insurmountable and they kept up the chase still their fifth wicket fell – but the delicate and fascinating balance of the game had been wrecked.It was then, when the match was robbed of its promised finale, that Johnson felt most aggrieved about the events at Carisbrook. He saw his team, or Auckland whose approach he deeply admired, being deprived of a result which had been hard earned, by teams who had not worked as hard for their rewarded.The fact that the Carisbrook match ended in a draw caused him only a little consolation.”What happened at Carisbrook was out of our control and I don’t really want to comment because I wasn’t there,” Johnson said. “But it’s disappointing when you play four hard games to get two points and they play one and a half days and could get six.”Wellington ultimately retained their four-point Trophy lead but Johnson was only moderately satisfied.”It’s a shame this match ended as it did,” he said. “One of the things we talk about within the team is that we want to get better with every game and to learn with every game. The things we’ve learned here is that when we get teams on the rack we should finish them of and when two guys [Roger Twose and Matthew Bell] get hundreds and we only score 300, someone else isn’t doing their job.”When we went to lunch needing 236 runs from 66 overs we were very confident we got have got that. We broke it down to two sections of 33 overs and 120 runs in each of those sections and we were very capable of getting that.”We didn’t, sadly, but we held the Trophy lead. We’re only halfway through with five hard games to come and the competition’s still anyone’s but we’re reasonably happy with where we are.”When the match finally ended tonight at 6.35pm, in fading light and much less exciting circumstances than the day had promised at its outset, neither side was really close to a result.Wellington was 161/5, still 150 away from victory and Auckland still needed those last five wickets. Richard Jones made 42 and Selwyn Blackmore 45 as Wellington’s principal scorers and though they promoted Carl Bulfin in the batting order to stimulate the run chase, Wellington were never in the hunt after the rain break.Nor were Auckland who, at one stage, brought wicketkeeper Lou Vincent out from behind the stumps to bowl four overs of offspin.But Auckland could look at the match with satisfaction equal to Wellington’s. They competed superbly, particularly on the third day when Dion Nash and Kyle Mills scored centuries to turn the tide of the game. Mills could also look back on the match with enormous individual satisfaction. He finished with a maiden first-class century – he was 117 not out when Auckland declared this morning – and he took five wickets for 92 runs.The teams meet in a Shell Cup match at the Basin Reserve tomorrow.