Southland Sport
The Southland cricket team’s bowling attack have put their team in a strong position following day one of their Hawke Cup Challenge against Counties Manukau in Manurewa.
Counties Manukau currently holds the Hawke Cup with Southland the last team this season to challenge for the silverware.
Southland last held the Hawke Cup, which is contested between New Zealand Cricket’s minor-associations, in 1992 and is pushing to end a 26-year drought for the province.
First innings honours in a drawn match would be enough for Southland to get their hands on the prized trophy. However, with two days still to play there is plenty Southland still needs to overcome to get to that point.
Counties Manukau won the toss and chose to bat first at Weymouth Oval in Manurewa and the Southland bowlers quickly took charge.
With frontline quick Jacob Duffy unavailable for the Hawke Cup challenge because of Otago Volts duties, Alex Tait was thrown the new-ball and he delivered.
Tait took two early wickets to reduce Counties Manukau to 2-7 before finding plenty of support from his fellow bowlers.
Southland used six bowlers in total with every one of them picking up at least one wicket.
The teenage spinning duo of Ben Lockrose and Jack Mockford between them sent down 21 overs for a combined 3-38 as Counties were skittled for 138 batting first.
The Southland batsmen then went about digging deep for the remainder of the 33 overs left on day one to ensure the bowlers toil was not wasted.
Southland got through to 69-2 with opener Jared McKenzie unbeaten on 69.
The three-day fixture will continue on Saturday and Sunday.
Day 1 – SHORT SCOREBOARD
Southland 69-2 (J McKenzie 28*, J Ng 24, S Fitzgibbon 11*), Counties Manukau 138 all out (R Somani 45, R Phizackerley 23, K Clarke 20; A Tait 12-3-32-3, 14.1-4-24-2, B Lockrose 12-5-24-2, J Mockford 9-2-14-1, J Domigan 8-1-21-1, J Ng 9-4-23-1).