It's make or break time

Marlborough Academy and Wairau Valley will be scrambling for a win to keep their final hopes alive in tomorrow's penultimate round of the Grove Tavern two-day championship cricket.

The two sides meet on Horton Park's No2 ground in an English rules match, knowing the loser will have no chance of making the two-day final.

Valley sit at the foot of the table with 22 competition points and will need to produce a dramatic form turnaround, particularly with the bat, if they are to keep alive any slim hopes of a top two finish.

Academy are more firmly in contention with 35 points, but still trail second-placed Celtic by 17 points and competition leaders Wairau by 25.

Celtic and Wairau meet on the No1 ground with the winner looking assured of a spot in the March 20-21 final.

The last time Academy and Valley met, the youngsters from Academy secured a first innings win.

Tomorrow they will have to repeat that form without skipper Ben Wheeler, who's away representing New Zealand under-19 against a Sri Lanka under-21 development team; and fellow Marlborough rep Mitchell Croft, who is again unavailable. Blake Parata comes into the side to replace Wheeler.

Terry Sloan returns for Valley as does Tim Anders, replacing bowlers Damon Smith and Josh Tautari.

Celtic will be out to avoid a repeat of the batting collapse that saw them slump to an outright loss inside a day in their last encounter with Wairau.

Celtic will be boosted by the return of Matt Murphy from a knee injury, while batsman Brendon Adams comes in for his first match of the season. They replace Andy Fitzpatrick and John Cook.

Wairau head in to tomorrow's match with a trio of bowlers – Ben Stark, Josh Heath and Wade Cornelius – unavailable. However, they have more than handy replacements.

Marlborough rep skipper Geoff Barnett, the experienced Greg Logan and top batsman Bryce Smith return after missing last week's match.

With the two-day round-robin season winding to a close, Wairau skipper Vaughan Harris said the pressure would be on the teams, particularly the captains, in the condensed English rules format.

"I think everyone is still getting to grips with the English rules. Last year a lot of the games were non-events with teams getting bowled out cheaply and nobody having to make many hard decisions," Harris said.

"It's getting near the end of the competition, and if points are close you might see some more tactical decisions this year."

Both matches start at noon and have a maximum of 110 overs.

- The Marlborough Express