Club rugby will take over this space from next week, so this is the last Notes from Slip for the season.
But we have no intention of slipping away quietly.
PlayHQ can expect one final serve. But first — a correction.
Dunedin umpire David Moir wrote in to say it was "not strictly speaking true" to say it was the first time Australia will be sending an "A" team to New Zealand.
"After an abortive effort to set up regular tests with a ‘one-off’ which Australia won by miles in 1946, in the late '50s and through the '60s up until at least 1970, Australia sent ‘A' teams, being a mixture of current test players and others," he wrote. Thanks Dave.
Crease bound
To be honest, Sean Davey’s haul of seven for 25 against Wellington yesterday just made me mad.
How is a player that good not getting a regular run in a first-class team?
The 29-year-old former New Zealand under-19 representative has been stuck behind the likes of Matt Henry, Will Williams, Ed Nuttall, Fraser Sheat, Henry Shipley and Will O’Rourke.
There has just been no room for him in the Canterbury starting XI more often.
Yet before yesterday’s heroics, he had built an impressive record of 30 wickets at an average of 21.86 in nine games.
That record compares very favourably to some of his would-be competition had he shifted to Otago a few years back.
He is a year older than Otago spearhead Jacob Duffy, but they actually played together at the under-19 World Cup in 2012.
Duffy is playing his 89th first-class game this week, Davey is clocking his 10th. And that is why New Zealand Cricket needs to utilise the loan system more often.
For every Davey, there are probably another dozen players not playing each week. That is a squandered resource.
Clubbing it
Here’s one final backhander for PlayHQ — the platform has just started to be useful as the season winds up.
The search engine is a really good tool and superior to the previous platform’s search engine.
Player statistics are now available and they are a decent resource.
The competition standings are easy to get, and they provide a combined total, so we can work out who is leading the Bing Harris without getting out a calculator and adding up the points for the one-day, T20 and declaration competitions like we used to.
Bravo.
Just wish we did not have to wait all summer for those improvements.
The declaration
Auckland spinner Will Somerville has announced he will retire from professional cricket.
The 38-year-old got his start with Otago in 2004-05 and should have played more often for the Volts.
He was overlooked for Nathan McCullum, who was a better batter but not a better bowler.
Somerville moved to Australia and slugged away at grade cricket until enjoying some late and well-deserved success when he was called into the New South Wales team in 2014.
He made the decision to return to New Zealand and chase his dream of playing international cricket.
He got to play six tests.
Great story of tenacity.
