New Zealand Cricket issues apology to southern U19 team
The Otago U19 cricket team - featuring two Southlanders - has finished fourth at the national tournament, but were they a little hard done by?
The Otago Under-19 cricket team - featuring Southland’s Nick Brown and Shahen Wijesinghe - has finished fourth at the national tournament at Lincoln.
But it hasn’t come without a touch of controversy and an apology from New Zealand Cricket.
The Otago team impressed through the round-robin phase of the one-day tournament and headed into Friday’s game needing a convincing win over Wellington to advance to Saturday’s final.
Chasing 309 to win and at 104 for four it didn’t look very likely.
That though was before Zac Cumming - son of former Black Cap Craig Cumming - changed the game spectacularly with his 121 from 78 balls.
News filtered through via a text message to the Otago coach, from the tournament director, that Otago needed to overhaul the target inside 47 overs to ensure their net run rate topped Wellington in the standings.
They did that, notching up victory at the 46.1 over mark and those in the Otago camp celebrated accordingly.
Their thoughts started to switch to a spot in the final against Auckland on Saturday.
However, it was determined that Otago hadn’t done enough to better Wellington on net run rate and it finished third after round-robin play.
There was a feeling in the Otago camp that if it hadn’t been advised 47 overs was the magic number, they could have knocked over the runs quicker if they thought that was what was needed.
That wasn’t the case and Otago had to settle for a play-off for third on Saturday against Canterbury.
A New Zealand Cricket spokesperson confirmed they had “erred” when providing the wrong information before the end of Friday’s game.
“At age-group tournaments, NZC usually only records NRR calculations (i.e: after the fact) but on this occasion was asked to forecast an outcome and erred.
“NZC apologised to the Otago team in person on Saturday morning, and has also furnished the Otago association with a formal letter of apology.
“We’re now reviewing our protocols to prevent a repeat of this incident.”
To sprinkle some salt into the wound Otago came up short in the playoff for third on Saturday. It posted 259 batting first before Canterbury chased it down with three wickets and 2.2 overs in hand.