Hearts blog
2012/13
Round 2 - 5 December, 2012
Apologies all for the delay with this update. It's been a stressful Monday and Tuesday at work trying to catch up after taking another Friday off!
So it started a lot more smoothly at Eden Park on Friday morning - we had the luxury of an extra hour of sleep meeting at 6.30am this time. All 8 of the girls booked for the shuttle made it on time, however, there was news of an accident on the motorway which threatened to strand Deano and Loz who hail from the Shore. They made it to the airport late but I guess we'll give them a break! We passed the Firebirds on the way through and it was good to see we aren't the only ones with early starts!
We headed off down to Palmerston North and the flight attendants were nice enough to announce that it was Ms. Paula "Grubs" Gruber's birthday and the whole plane joined in serenading her with a rendition of Happy Birthday. She was then given a significant stash of fudge and lollipops and she lit up like a kid at Christmas!
On the plane trip, it was decided that the team was going to start a lotto ticket syndicate (considering the jackpot winner was from Invercargill last weekend and we were there!) so we each put in $2 for two tickets, one to be bought in Palmy and one in Masterton, our final destination. I still don't know if we won...Maddy was in charge of the buying. Come to think of it, I hope she hasn't fled the country with all of our winnings!
We arrive in Palmy and pile into the rental vans, Haidee at the helm of the passenger van and Deano in charge of the cargo. We passed the Tui brewery in Mangatainoka and we had to drag Dean away from the lure of beer and Tui girls. We managed to get to Masterton on time and made our way maybe slightly illegally up and over the curb (shush! where is the entrance?!) to Queen Elizabeth Park to play Central Districts.
Again with the locals saying the rain set in (!!!), we managed to get in a reduced match of 16 overs each. The pitch was hard to distinguish from the rest of the outfield and Vic won the toss again. We managed to restrict them to 92 with the wickets shared. We then went in to chase and only Mads and Vic put up any fight with 24 and 21 respectively and then Holly and some hard running in the last few overs, we came up excruciatingly 1 run short.
Back to the hotel and off to the Homestead family restaurant for dinner. A colouring competition ensued (despite the frowning upon by the waitress) with all non entrants (i.e. the oldies) giving each a score out of 5. In 3rd equal - Mads and Katie P - ok Katie, the sun is brown for a reason...2nd place was Arlene with excellent keeping within the lines and 1st place with a winning margin of just ½ a point went to Loz for her brightness and vitality! (George still maintains she was robbed as a score was missing from hers and Roz needs a special mention here for being the most artistically challenged - although really it was because she left the whole farmer and cow white!) Another round of Happy Birthday in the restaurant for Grubs and a bit of chocolate cake to top off the evening.
Day 2 - the weather was perfect. And like a repeat of last weekend, the cricket was pretty good too. CD won the toss and decided to bat and they scrambled their way to 153. Again the wickets were shared with Gee the pick taking 3 for 27 off her 7 overs. Super sub Roz came on for the birthday girl late in the innings and took two catches and executed a direct hit run out with style. We then went in to bat, with a bonus point in sight, we went for it, Vic making a superb 67 and Holly with 41 not out, we almost got there but then losing 3 quick wickets for a total of 1 run, the birthday girl in at number 10 had to go in and steady the ship and bring us back to just getting the win. Which we did! So that made us 3 from 3 in the one day comp.
That evening, the FGC was established with Fat Amy as the president. We dined in town for a casual meal (some, still sporting their fat pants) and we took in and were captivated by the local style and culture. I think a lot of the girls found boyfriends for each other that night. Although LDK did run into some white girl problems but Suebo was on hand to assist! (As always. We love you Suebo.)
Day 3 was overcast but fine. CD put us in and Vic did her captains knock thing for a second day on the trot. Vic with 62, Mads with her first half century for the Hearts - a beautifully played 51 and Katie P with 41 off 45 balls. Have to mention here as well that the birthday girl again, goes in to face the last ball of the innings and plays her "one shot" smacking Broadmore over mid wicket for 4 to give us our total of 222.
The bowlers also did their thing, again sharing the wickets. Roz took her first Hearts wicket. Mads took a match changing diving catch in the outfield to get rid of Priest on 0 and they could only limp along to 175. We needed to keep them to 177 to get the bonus point and it didn't even look like they were trying to stop us! So another successful weekend.
Tiff had a nice chat with the umps in relation to the interpretation of the wide laws (move, not wide, what?) and the girls sounded fab driving back to Palmy blasting cheesy pop songs all the way. We arrived back in Auckland very tired on Sunday night at 11pm and some of us were back at work first thing Monday morning!
But now we're 8 points ahead at the top of the one day table with 4 from 4 (including 2 bonus points) and we're keen to keep working hard and keep the momentum going into next weekend where we play Northern Districts at Melville Park on the 7th, 8th and 9th of December. It's our first home game of the season so I hope we can get a good crowd along to support!
Also, thanks to the supporters who have been travelling with us. Mr & Mrs Lind made it all the way down to Invercargill to watch us last weekend and the Greens and the Barriballs were in Masterton. Hopefully we'll see all the girls' friends and families this weekend at home.
Round 1 - 26 November, 2012
We’ll here we go again! Welcome to the 2012/2013 Hearts season. We know we’ve got a lot to live up to after last season and all the girls are ready to give their all to do it all over again.
We do have to introduce some newbies to the Hearts. With our highly successful co-coaches of last year moving on, Maia to the Halberg Trust and Trins moving back down to Christchurch (and together with that, taking on the top job of the White Ferns Coach – all the best Trins!) we welcome Haidee Maree Tiffen MNZM as new coach of the Hearts.
Tiff’s Wikipedia page speaks for itself – former White Ferns player and captain, her NZ career spanning over 10 years, amassing 2919 runs over her 117 ODIs – practically cricketing royalty – in 2011 she even received the honour of becoming a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for her services to sport. It’s fairly safe to say that she’s reasonably qualified for the job! We also welcome Deano “Smooth talking” Flyger as a permanent fixture to the squad – Dean comes on as assistant coach (as well as still taking on the head coaching job of the Auckland Women’s Development side who will be going down to Christchurch just before Christmas to defend their title and hopefully notch up a fifth consecutive championship!)
It started off bright and early, a nice 4.30am wake up call for some of us on Friday morning as we had to meet the shuttle at Eden Park at 5.30am to take us to the airport for a 6am check in. 3 of us were at the shuttle as we headed off at 5.30am SHARP from Eden Park, luckily, poor Roz raced in behind the shuttle as we were leaving and managed to wave us down! Close call for Roz and adding to that, she boarded the shuttle with a bucket in hand, as in, she’d been up all night vomiting (no not self-inflicted…)! She assured us all that it wasn’t contagious and that she’d be right by the next day so off we went!
We arrive at the airport where our trusty manager Suebo was there to meet us, she wouldn’t be travelling with us as her hubby George had been quite ill the week before. We all hope he’s much better now Suebo. Fortunately though, as Suebo didn’t travel, that meant we could take 13 players down with us which was a real treat. Georgia aka GAG aka Fat Amy arrives and tells us that she also pulled into Eden Park just as we left and missed us! Doh! What we failed to realise as well was that a certain vice-captain of ours who shall remain nameless was also meant to catch that shuttle! But her alarm didn’t go off as it was still set to Sydney time from her recent trip with the NZ Emerging Players! Tut tut. So Miss VC came running into the airport well after check-in time (after illegally parking her car somewhere – and then asking her flatties to come and retrieve it later that day!) but luckily we managed to squeeze her through! Phew! So all 15 of us eventually boarded the connecting flight into bumpy Wellington and then from there into the little plane down to Invercargill to take on the Otago Sparks.
With such early flights, we arrived before lunch time and our T20 match wasn’t scheduled to start until 4.00pm so we headed into the buzzing hub of Invercargill where most of us had Pita Pit for lunch. From there it was an afternoon of hanging around the hotel until we left for the ground, Queens Park.
It was overcast and drizzling when we started, not the ideal weather for T20 debutant Arlene “Teach me” Kelly aka Filly aka Nancy aka ADK and we scraped through to 111 off our 20 overs with Vic Lind and Katie P putting on 32 & 19 respectively as the only significant partnership of the innings. The rain “set in” at the change of innings according to the locals, however, we were back out there with a reduced game using Duckworth Lewis the Sparks needing only 86 from 14 overs. We knew it was going to be a tough ask and we knew we had to get White Ferns players Bates and Martin early if we were going to defend the modest total. No such luck as they went on to post an opening partnership of 75 in just 10.2 overs. So it was a pretty tough night on Friday, we all just had dinner in the hotel and then straight to bed to dream of a better result of the next two days!
Saturday proved to be much better, weather and result wise. Two one day debutants today, again Arlene and Regina Lilii who had only played T20’s for the Hearts before this round. Captain Vic winning the toss elected to bat on a good track and it paid off. Almost all of the batters produced the goods with 6 of the top 7 getting good starts and creating some good partnerships. Katie P the pick of the bunch with a PB for Auckland – an unbeaten 65 off 79 balls. We produced a great total of 221 meeting our target and ready to finish it off in the field.
Arlene started us off grabbing the scalp of Martin from her second delivery and from there it was all downhill for Otago. Bates put up some resistance but the spin twins George and Grubs did their thing taking 7 wickets for 46 runs between them. GAG with the second PB of the weekend with a 5 wicket haul for just 19 runs off her 10 overs. Amazing! We cleaned up the tail, George taking the final catch to seal the deal and had them all out for 117. Hearts win with a bonus point by 104 runs! Stark contrast to the day before.
With an early finish, spirits were high and the girls were ready for a bit of fun that evening. The hotel that we were staying in had a couple of weddings planned for that night, so we decided to join in on the festivities. We enjoyed a lovely pre-wedding dinner at the hotel restaurant where we partook in a round of Highs and Lows. We were all sporting our team fat pants and I must say we all looked stunning! We snuck in and witnessed a ceremony and everyone was in hysterics as the celebrant made mention of “Two Hearts becoming one”. We even managed to enjoy a bit of the cake and all of the unmarried girls were right there at the bouquet toss! It was a classic night that will go down in history as being one to remember for the Hearts. (I think we were lucky we didn’t get thrown out of the hotel!)
Everyone was up and ready to go on Sunday morning as we watched the Abs at breakfast. Again, a beautiful morning as we arrived at the ground and again went into bat (good work Cap). We had the smile chain going on and we were all teeth, ready to make it two from two in the one day comp! It was like de ja vu as the batters again did their thing with 6 of the top 7 all getting starts and putting on good partnership to get us through to one better 222 off our 50 overs. Megan “DJ Tron” Tremaine with the third PB of the weekend – smoking 50 off 60 balls. Also, awesome stuff by Holly smashing an invaluable 30 off just 14 balls to close us out.
Again, a similar story to yesterday with Martin going cheap early by a great nut from Holly and then Bates showing some form but a loose shot saw her paddle a full toss straight to Grubs at fine leg, again, sealing Otago’s fate. There was a bit more fight from their tail on Sunday and they pushed us right to the 48th over, but with crazy suicide running and 5 clinically executed run outs by the Hearts, they were always going to come up short – this time, only 18 runs short so a bit closer than we would have liked!
We all made it home safe and sound with Tiff leaving the pug nets rotating on the baggage claim – luckily Gee went back and saw them, otherwise, Tiff wouldn’t hear the end of it (she still won’t)! Although that fineable offence was nothing compared to forgetting to actually name the teams on Friday and Saturday in the changing room! Things to work on for next round!
So after the weekend we are firmly at the top of the one day points table with 9 points followed by CD on 5 points who we face next weekend in Masterton. CD lost Welly in their T20 this weekend too so we’ll be looking to capitalise on that get on the board in the next round of the T20 competition on Friday.
Hearts schedule
Hearts results
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