If Otago punches the numbers into the calculator the answer it will get is pride — that is basically all that is left to play for.
The Volts(six points) have mustered just one win from seven Super Smash games and are anchored at the bottom of the competition standings.
Coach Dion Ebrahim said his side was resigned to the fact the playoffs had essentially slipped out of reach with three round-robin games remaining.
"Four wins won’t guarantee us any finals cricket," he said.
"And if we get two wins out of three we will probably miss out. But we’ve spoken as a team about trying to keep our standards high from a performance point of view.
"There is still an opportunity for individuals to produce match-winning performances and there are still certain aspects from a technical and tactical point of view that we want to achieve."
One of the areas Ebrahim would like to see a big improvement is in the fielding display.
"It is an area where we have possibly let ourselves down in the last few games ... so it is important we be clinical in the field.
"And from a batting perspective we’ve had players getting themselves in, but we need them to ensure that they are capitalising and batting long and deep and playing a match-winning innings."
The Volts lean on captain Hamish Rutherford to score heavily at the top of the order. He has, once again, been the best of the Otago batters with 182 runs at a strike rate of 135.82.
Neil Broom, Nick Kelly and Anaru Kitchen have all had their moments, but basically the batting line-up has failed to fire consistently. The Volts have been forced to chop and change a lot which has not helped.
"Of the 14 games the team has played [across the three formats] we’ve had to leave a player out due to injury or illness in nine of those.
"It can be hard to put in good performance without consistency in selection. But whoever has come in has done an outstanding job."
Otago got good mileage out of uncontracted spinner Ben Lockrose in its last one-day outing. Josh Tasman-Jones has filled in admirably at the top of the twenty20 batting order, and Llew Johnson has played a couple of useful cameos as well.
Promising all-rounder Beckham Wheeler-Greenall is likely to get his second run for Otago when it plays Wellington in a T20 at the Basin Reserve today.
Lockrose (21), Johnson (21), Wheeler-Greenall (19) and wicketkeeper Max Chu (21) are all under 22, so the Volts have an impressive young coterie coming through.
Super Smash
Otago v Wellington
Otago: Hamish Rutherford (captain), Josh Tasman-Jones, Neil Broom, Nick Kelly, Anaru Kitchen, Llew Johnson, Max Chu, Beckham Wheeler-Greenall, Angus McKenzie, Jacob Duffy, Matt Bacon, Jake Gibson.
Basin Reserve, 2.40pm
Competition standings
Northern 18
Canterbury 16
Central 12
Auckland 12
Wellington 8
Otago 6
