Change of approach pays big dividends for Wellington's Nevin

A carefully-considered decision to change his approach to one-day cricket led to Chris Nevin's match-winning innings of 111 for Wellington who beat Auckland by 19 runs in a State Shield match at the Basin Reserve today.

Wellington reached 300/5, batting first after winning the toss and after surviving an alarming charge by Auckland openers Matt Horne and Llorne Howell, who put on 155 for the first wicket, bowled out Auckland for 281 in the 49th over.

Nevin was noted in his limited overs career, a scorer of one previous one-day century, as a player whose innings were both dashing and brief.

"If I got 50 off 60 balls one day, I'd go out and try to get 50 off 40 balls the next," Nevin said. "In the past I would have been charging down the wicket third ball."

But Nevin made a decision during the New Zealand A team's tour of India, a decision which has hardened since his return, to bat with much more constraint in his role as a one-day opener. He realised he had time on his hands and his instinctive urge to fly at the bowling from the start had become more a handicap than a help.

To a degree, Nevin had owed his international one-day selection to his ability to accelerate the run rate at the start of the innings. He had no compunction about attacking the new ball and while he was sometimes successful he was also aware that his reckless approach caused many promising innings to be cut short.

Nevin decided in India, with a little prompting reinforced this season by coaches Vaughn Johnson and Ashley Ross, to endeavour to prolong his innings, to score more slowly and to prosper by being longer at the crease.

His decision to alter, to become more circumspect, in his own play was assisted by Wellington's team decision to be less concerned about scoring runs quickly from any match's opening overs. Both realised that a team builds a larger innings when it has wickets in hand.

"I worked it out in India with the New Zealand A team that I didn't have to go out and throw the bat at everything in the first few overs," Nevin said. "I knew If I worked hard and stuck around, if I took my time and picked my shots it would come good.

"I'd become too pre-occupied with my strike rate in the past. Now I don't care if it takes me 130 or 140 balls to get to 100 as long as I get there. I was used to getting quick 20s and 30s, then getting myself out but now I'm reducing the risk and I think it will work for me.

"It was a change I had to make and it's certainly been worthwhile."

The importance of Nevin's innings today, which involved partnerships of 53 with Matthew Bell for the first wicket, 126 with Richard Jones for the second and which ended when Wellington was 203/3 in the 38th over was enlarged in the context of the game's close finish.

Auckland, who were given an outstanding start by openers Horne and Howell who put on 155 for the first wicket, were at one stage well on target to achieve their winning total. The loss of the openers within 30 runs of each other, the resultant collapse of the middle order and the lack of one more partnership of substance, left Auckland just short of a remarkable victory.

"It was definitely nerve-wracking out there," Nevin said. "They only needed five an over after the first 25 but Paul Hitchcock and Matt Walker bowled brilliantly through the middle of the innings and we just got there."

Cynical observers might have seen a subtext in Nevin's innings of 114 balls today - a sly rebuttal of the national selectors who had omitted him from their squad for the tri-nations one-day series in Australia. Ironically the first match of that tour was beginning in Brisbane just as Wellington's match at the Basin Reserve was ending in dimming light.

"Some people say you're proving a point but I don't look at it that way," the sanguine Nevin said. "It's not a case of trying to prove any points or make any statements to the selectors. They had their reasons for leaving me out and I understand them.

"I wasn't making any points but getting runs in front of the selectors - and I notice Ross Dykes was here today - is a good way of pressing your case for selection in the future."

Nevin was desperately leg weary, as were all Wellington's players, as they came from the field today after this gripping contest.

Nevin's effort of batting through more than two-thirds of Wellington's innings was a personally satisfying one - a vindication of his new policy - but it was also cruelly tiring. He returned to the grandstand to rest and in time to see Matthew Walker blast 61 runs from 45 balls to hurl Wellington through the psychological barrier of 300 runs.

Walker hit seven fours and one six, put on 96 for the last two wickets and was unbeaten at the close.

Then Nevin returned to the middle to wicket-keep through the 49 overs of Auckland's innings and to endure, with his team-mates, a growing apprehension about Auckland's chase for the winning runs.

Horne and Howell literally scragged the Wellington's bowlers in the opening overs, romping along at more than eight per over, then averaging seven and leaving those that followed them an attainable rate of five per over through the second half of the innings.

Horne faced only 60 balls for his 76 runs, batting 99 minutes, and Howell needed 123 minutes for his 87. Their joint assault opened a breach in Wellington's total that the remaining Aucklanders should have romped through.

But Wellington have become artists at bowling at the death and they gradually placed small clamps on Auckland's run rate. Horne fell at 155, Howell at 185, then wickets tumbled at 198, 218, 219, 237, 254 and 258. Auckland had given up the luxury of wickets in hand and the run rate had climbed inexorably.

They were left needing 35 from the last five overs with two wickets in hand and ultimately 25 from the last two. Hitchcock removed Brooke Walker with a superb diving catch off his own bowling and the run out of Mark Haslam brought the innings to a meek conclusion.

Horne was bitterly disappointed to see his team slump to a third loss in four matches after such a promising beginning.

"Our coach Tony Sail summed it up when he said we've passed 250 three times this season and lost, we must be doing something wrong and something has to improve," Horne said.

"The key to it was keeping wickets in hand and producing partnerships and when it came down to it there was one more partnership needed.

"I was really happy with the way I batted. I felt I was hitting the ball well but it's the old story. I got myself out a bit too soon."

Wellington's players were rated by the match umpires for their apparent attempts to scuff or soften the ball during Auckland's innings, though no further steps were taken against them.