100th First-class Match For Central Stags Captain Greg Hay

Central Stags captain Greg Hay will lead an unchanged squad onto his home ground in Nelson when he plays his 100th first-class match from this Saturday morning. 
 

Hay is poised to become one of the few Stags representatives to have played a hundred first-class matches in their overall career, which for Hay includes two New Zealand A matches and 97 Plunket Shield appearances ahead of tomorrow's second-round match against the Wellington Firebirds in the national championship.

The skipper is coming off a century on the opening day of the season, a knock that set up an innings victory with a day to spare in Auckland.

The defending champion Stags are at the right end of the table and are returning to the scene of their last match last summer in which they secured the 2023 title.

The match coming up over the next four days is against another first-round winner, the Wellington Firebirds, with free admission at Saxton Oval every day to see the Nelson legend in his milestone match, and with fine weather forecast even as other parts of the country are in for some stormy situations.

It's as if all the stars have aligned for the batsman who made his first-class debut against this same team, at the Cello Basin Reserve on 21 November 2006.

By then, he had already been a Nelson representative for several years — the Waimea College boy having debuted for Nelson as a promising young player in his teens. He top-scored at number six in the first innings on Stags debut, promptly scoring 98 not out to help the side along to an eventual victory.

Fast forward to the present and he's the senior opening batsman, the rock of the side, and a team man to the core who puts the team outcome ahead of his own statistics in the game.

A highly respected captain, he is nevertheless the owner of 6,712 first-class runs, 17 Plunket Shield centuries, a 41.95 batting average and two Plunket Shield titles as a captain, in addition to those as a player.

Hay now sits high on the lists of most of the Central Stags first-class batting records, but it's winning hard-fought games of red-ball cricket, and upholding the traditions and spirit of the game, that undoubtedly means the most to the 39-year-old.

Tomorrow's match will also see Test spinner Ajaz Patel poised to take his 250th first-class wicket for the Stags in the Plunket Shield, among his 327 first-class wickets overall, while fellow Test representative Blair Tickner needs just a further six victims to reach 200 first-class wickets.

It will also see left-armer Ray Toole return to the scene of his match-winning, career best performance of 7/57 on the last day of the last match last season that secured the Plunket Shield championship for the Stags.

The Central Stags and Hinds will also be hosting a free admission Super Smash Open Day at Mitre 10 Park, Hastings on 20 November 2023.

© Scoop Media