Karori bounce back to take national title honours

BY SAM WORTHINGTON

From Pearce Cup humiliation to national champions, it has been quite some 10 days of cricket for Karori and their veteran skipper Simon Baker.

Karori were thrashed by Eastern Suburbs in the Pearce Cup final but the Wellington one-day champions again showed their prowess over 50 overs, beating Dunedin's University Grange by six wickets in yesterday's national club final in Auckland.

Black Cap Ian Butler top scored with 37 for University Grange, who boasted seven first-class players but were rolled for just 101 after winning the toss.

Tournament hero Simon Allen then helped Karori make short work of the target, scoring an unbeaten 53 from 54 balls.

Karori won four of their five round-robin one-dayers to qualify top for the final at Cornwall cricket club.

The most remarkable victory was Thursday's run-fest against Mt Maunganui, with Karori amassing 420-5 and Allen thumping 210.

Baker was not overly confident of all the team making their flight back to Wellington this morning, with celebrations of the club's first national title expected to last well into the night.

"From the lows of the Pearce Cup to the highs of this, it's quite amazing actually," Baker said.

It had been decided there was no point, or time, to dwell on the Pearce Cup final, in which they were skittled for just 67 and 70.

"We felt it was a bit of a freakish game of cricket and those things happen."

Baker said the quality of the play was the highest he had experienced in a lengthy career, with 20 first-class players, including Black Caps Butler, Aaron Redmond, Scott Styris, Gareth Hopkins and Karori's Andy McKay participating.

"It was taken pretty seriously and to come away as champions is just absolutely unbelievable.

"It's really good pay back for guys like myself and Lee [Edwards] who have been around for a long time."

Overall, Baker said Karori was the youngest team at the six-team tournament, with Harry Boam, Harry Wright, Tom Blundell, Vinnie Ward and Tom Gibson all 19 or younger,

"We had about seven guys injured so we even had to pull in a sub fielder, an old Karori boy up here.

"It has been a bit of a struggle injury-wise but we barred up and came good."

Stephen Murdoch led an inspired fielding performance yesterday, taking the best catch Baker had seen, a screamer in the gully to dismiss Redmond for one.Baker struggled to find words to describe Allen's double century, the highest score by a Karori premier batsman.

"Simon Allen joined the club as a young lad eight years ago and I was captain at the time.

"I seriously believed that he could have played for the Black Caps if he decided that's what he wanted to do. He's an incredibly talented guy. It wasn't on the best wicket and I don't quite know how he did it."

Karori's win was the first by a Wellington club at the national championships since University in 1997-98.

Baker said the work of coach Glenn Pocknall had been instrumental in the successful season.

- © Fairfax NZ News