New-look college show confidence

BY LIAM NAPIER

A new coach and a new captain will lead a fresh looking Wellington College first XI in their second season in the Hazlett Trophy, the second-tier Wellington club cricket competition.

Cricket Wellington staff member Ivan Tissera replaces Robbie Kerr as coach and Tom Logan has his first full season in charge.

He takes over the captaincy reins from Harry Boam, who has left school to play for Karori and is a member of the Wellington Firebirds squad.

Wellington College have a couple of familiar names in their squad, Harry Wright, son of former New Zealand captain John Wright, and Corey Larsen, son of Gavin Larsen.

Wright is a spinner and batsman and Larsen an all-rounder, very much in the mould of his father with his accurate, wicket-to-wicket medium-paced bowling.

Tissera said Wellington College were confident of acquitting themselves well against the men again after finishing fourth last season.

"New Zealand Cricket has identified Harry and Chamika [Gajanayaka] in their high-performance squad and the remainder of our squad is in the Wellington under-19 or under-17s," Tissera said.

"Our goal is to be in the finals. We have a very good fast bowler in Charlie McLean who is bowling about 120kmh to 130kmh and our leadership is massive.

"In Tom Logan we have a great captain who makes my job a lot easier. We had our first team meeting about six weeks ago and I was very impressed with how he conducted it. He put a lot of rules in place with regard to discipline."

Fines of $10 will be issued to players who fail to turn up 15 minutes before training, but after 12 sessions none have been imposed, signalling the attitude of the squad.

The bowling comprised two spinners, three medium pacers, and McLean, but it was the batting that would be tested, Tissera said.

"Wellington have always had good batters, but the problem is we train mostly indoors and they look really good in the nets but once they play [outdoors] on different wickets they find it very hard.

"We have strength in our top six batting and we've got bowlers who can bowl sides out.

"We need one or two to bat right through. If we can do that, it will be a big, big strength as we have a lineup that bats down to No 10."

Team: Scott Archer, Tom Donaldson, Andrew Fletcher, Chamika Gajanayaka, Tom Gibson, Corey Larsen, Sam Lawson, Tom Logan, Charlie McLean, Luke Scully, Harry Wright, James Cummins, Jamie Gibson, Tom Morgan, Callum Thornton.

- © Fairfax NZ News