When Jesse Ryder gets into his groove there's few better in the world to watch.

His fast hands, his timing, and his ability to manipulate a field is simply sublime.

It's almost silly that a guy this good is playing on a little ground in Invercargill in front of just a handful of people but those who turned up to watch the Otago Volts-Wellington one-day game were given a rare treat of class strokeplay yesterday.

The left-hander set the tone for what was an impressive day of hitting yesterday.

Play was scheduled to start at 11am but rain halted it before the game (reduced to 39 overs) eventually got underway at 2pm.

The Volts won the toss and elected to bowl and Ryder made his intentions pretty clear when he carved the first ball of the match from James McMillan for four through the point region.

On the fifth ball of the innings, McMillan found Ryder's edge but what would have to be regarded a sitter of a catch at second slip was put down by Jimmy Neesham and the Volts were made to pay.

Ryder racked up four fours and six sixes scoring 72 runs in in 39 balls. When he was final caught at short third man by McMillan from the bowling of Neesham he had got Wellington off to a flyer with the score at 97 after 11 overs.

It far from a one man show with Ryder simply lighting the match on the game.

The in-form Michael Papps notched 82 from 88 balls while Josh Brodie also passed 50 and Grant Elliott and Harry Boam closed out the innings well. Elliott's 43 came off just 29 balls while Boam's 36 was off just 20.

It left the Otago Volts the daunt ing task of chasing down 309 to win and, to their credit, they played their role in making yesterday the spectacle it was.

Converted opener Sam Wells continued to thrive in the role racking up 57 from 46 balls which included four impressive sixes.

Jimmy Neesham and Michael Bracewell played handy roles before captain Derek de Boorder wentclose to stealing what would have been a remarkable win.

He clubbed 60 from 48 balls to reduce what looked like an absolute impossible task to his team needing 29 off the last two overs.

When he went off the fourth ball of the second last overs so did Otago's chances.

While the result wasn't according to script but 596 runs in 77 overs was something special.

logan.savory@stl.co.nz

- © Fairfax NZ News

Comments