Hitting the mark
Apologies to Otago batter Thorn Parkes. The young man was incorrectly described as a right-hander (Cricinfo can’t always be trusted) and the headline said he was making his debut this week (oops, neither can sub-editors - signed, the sub-editor). Both were wrong.
But there was nothing wrong about Parkes’ effort against Auckland at Eden Park Outer Oval in the season-opener. The left-hander made back-to-back half-centuries.
He was not contracted this year but earned a call-up last season after scoring heavily for Otago A and North East Valley. He has made an impressive start.
Clubbing it
More issues have emerged with the new scoring system being rolled out in the communities by New Zealand Cricket this summer.
CricHQ has been dropped in favour of PlayHQ and one user has highlighted a series of problems while scoring a game on the opening day of the Borton Cup in Oamaru.
The system does not allow editing of events which are more than five overs old yet, so a player who was accidentally recorded as retired out rather than retired hurt had to be entered into the system as ‘‘Fill In’’ when he returned to bat. Fill In went on to score 59 not out to go with his earlier effort of 21.
‘‘Accounts can’t be merged/fixed later... so, at present, he will never get his 80*’’ recorded in his statistics, the source said.
‘‘It’s no doubt to be fixed in the future, but we were told this tool was ready and tested. It’s still going to be very inflexible, which is its biggest drawback. Try finding a player in the search - it doesn’t work. Try finding a player’s past matches - you can’t.’’
He was also concerned you have to create a separate team for each competition, ‘‘so end up with all sorts on the club list’’.
The declaration
Great to see experienced Otago seamer Jacob Duffy back taking wickets with the red ball again.
The big Southlander had a very tough Plunket Shield campaign last summer, but he was on target from ball one in the opening game of the season.
He trapped Will O’Donnell lbw for a royal duck. Ouch.
He went on to nab another two that night to leave Auckland nine for three at stumps. He mopped up the innings the next day to finish with an excellent five for 27 from 17.1 overs - his 10th first-class five-wicket bag.
He picked up another three wickets in the second innings to help seal a 168-run win.
