Otago coach Vaughn Johnson has defended his side's batting order after the Volts slumped to an eight-wicket loss to Auckland at the University Oval yesterday.
In a bid to find a winning formula, Otago has certainly experimented, particularly with its batting order. In fact the side has probably chopped and changed a little too much for its own good this season.
Watching the Volts bow out of the HRV Cup yesterday, there was a sense the home team had stuck too rigidly to a batting order which was out of synch with the position of the match.
Otago made a fine start but lost momentum through the middle and final stages.
When Otago's most damaging batsman, Brendon McCullum, was dismissed, there was an opportunity to promote some of its heavy-hitters. But the team stuck with the status quo and in went Neil Broom.
Broom is a proven performer but he is also a known slow starter and has not been anywhere near the top his game this summer. He laboured to 10 off 11 before he was undone.
The Volts needed a spark and might have been better off sending in Nathan McCullum or Jimmy Neesham, both explosive and capable batsmen.
Johnson did not agree.
"It was a situation where we needed to up the ante and I trusted him to do that," he said.
"Neil is a quality player. I know questions are being asked about his form. But you don't become a bad player overnight and you can't just keep making changes.There has to be someone better to come in."
But perhaps a worse decision was to leave Dimitri Mascarenhas in the shed until the Volts were seven down. The big hitting all-rounder got to face just three deliveries and hit two of them for boundaries.
Johnson, though, has not been afraid to make changes, with Neil Wagner and Ian Butler both dropped from the starting XI.
Aaron Redmond was also left out yesterday after a prolonged run of poor form.
"We felt we needed to do something a little different. There have been some key players miss out and now it is up to them to get back in."
Otago is out of contention but has one remaining round-robin match. It plays Northern Districts in Hamilton on Thursday.
