Fleming injury concern as Wellington struggle

No national selectors were at the Basin Reserve on the first day of the State Championship match between Wellington and Northern Districts today but they will receive despatches from the ground, notes on form, which they will read with mixed pleasure and anxiety.

They will read first and at greatest length of the exploits of Northern all-rounder Scott Styris who, as an omnipresent figure throughout this first day, batted and bowled his side into a commanding position by the time stumps were drawn, in an autumn chill, a few minutes before 7pm.

There will be heartening mentions of the form of Ian Butler, the young fast bowler in his first international season, who depleted Wellington's confidence with a spell of incendiary pace on a seaming wicket and left them ripe for Styris' later harvest of three wickets.

They will hear that Chris Nevin, who has some claims to the disputed wicket-keeping position for the Tests against England, had a tidy day behind the stumps and claimed three catches, none of them routine, during Northern's first innings of 185. It will be less to their liking that Nevin was out for 0 as Wellington was reduced to 81/6 at stumps by Butler's virulent pace and Styris' superb control of length and movement.

Of most concern to them will be the news that New Zealand captain Stephen Fleming completed his short but impressive innings of 28 for Wellington with a runner after suffering a troubling injury while running between wickets. The nature of Fleming's injury had not been confirmed last night. He left the Basin Reserve shortly after the close of play for X-rays, examination and physiotherapy. The first indications were he had damaged a nerve on his left hip.

Fleming was clearly troubled by his injury, reduced at times to a shambling run before Richard Jones came out to run for him through the last few balls of his innings. That he stayed at the wicket in spite of his discomfort and given the need to take all precautions to preserve his fitness for the England Test series spoke hugely of his commitment to his new association.

When he left the field, trapped lbw by Joseph Yovich when Wellington was 68, Fleming walked away quite briskly and with less apparent deference to his injury. But he was said after the match to be sore and impeded in his movement and that news, most of all, will send a thrill of concern through the selection panel.

Styris returned to New Zealand at the end of the CLEAR Black Caps' tour of Australia probably feeling, though he would not say publicly, that he had been ill-used. He played the first couple of matches and top scored in one before he was neglected as a component of New Zealand's one-day side. He was eventually superceded in the all-rounder's role - that of bowler and hard-hitting lower order batsman - by Andre Adams.

But Styris said he and Adams were dissimilar players and were not competing for the same place in a New Zealand one-day lineup. Adams, Styris said, was a bowler who bats while he had completed a transition in his career and had reinvented himself as a batsman who bowls.

He has batted most of the season for Northern at No 4 and has done so with some success. He batted at No 6 today, coming to the crease when they were 66/4 after lunch, and with steady resolve and increasing aggression, saw them through the last 38 overs of their innings to 185.

Styris lacked industrious support at first. He had added only 12 with James Marshall before Marshall was out, for the innings' second-highest score of 37, in the 45th over and when Northern was 78. Grant Bradburn fell when they were 83, Robbie Hart when they were 90 and Bruce Martin when they were 99.

But Styris finally found a partner with stickability when Daryl Tuffey joined him in the 52nd over. Tuffey, who played comfortably and sensibly within his restricted range, stayed at the crease with Styris for 81 minutes and contributed 16 runs to a ninth wicket partnership of 71.

Tuffey was out in the 74th over when Northern was 170/9 and Styris managed to add 15 more with Butler before the innings ended. He was finally out, caught by Matthew Bell at mid-on from Mark Gillespie, 13 runs short of the century he had begun to believe he would realise.

Northern had been reduced early in their innings to 20/3 through the loss of Matthew Hart for five, Yovich for four and Michael Parlane for two. James and Hamish Marshall joined in a valuable partnership of 46 for the fourth wicket which spanned lunch and set the stage for Styris' arrival.

Styris said batting was difficult early in both innings when the ball was new and seaming but it became simpler after 35 or 40 overs when the ball had aged and behaved more predictably.

Wellington found the same thing but to a greater degree when they began their innings. Bell received a seaming delivery from Tuffey - only the second ball of the innings - and edged a catch to Robbie Hart which the Northern keeper put down.

Butler took the second over from the Northern end of the ground, bowling with the encouragement of a stiff breeze, and his first ball, to Jones, was like the first shell in a long bombardment. It spat from the pitch and seared like flying shrapnel through Jones half-completed shot.

For Jones, it was only a warning of things to come. Butler bowled his first few overs at breathtaking pace and with manifest hostility. It took Fleming to tame him later and to see him briefly removed from the attack.

He continued to startle Jones with deliveries which seamed back from outside off stump, which bounced and veered menacingly. He finally cut one back into Jones which beat the inside edge of the extended bat and shattered the stumps.

Two balls later, Butler fizzed a ball away from the young left-hander Luke Woodcock and had him caught, from a tentatively proferred outside edge, by the ubiquitous Styris at second slip.

Fleming steadied the innings, reacting with an easy calm to the menaces of his young New Zealand team-mate. He scored freely off all bowlers and made the pitch seem a much more placid thing than others had shown it.

But Fleming was impeded through much of his innings by his unfortunate injury and he was finally out to a casual and half-hearted shot, lbw to Yovich in the 13th over.

His dismissal at 68 signalled a Wellington collapse. Their next three wickets fell for 13 runs in fewer than nine overs, each of them to Styris. He removed James Franklin for three, caught by Robbie Hart, Bell for 21 - he batted 102 minutes - and Nevin for 0, bowling the New Zealand 'keeper off an inside edge.