Mondiale Auckland Aces will face the Wellington Firebirds

The Mondiale Auckland Aces will face the Wellington Firebirds with a much changed side that includes the addition of overseas professional Luke Wright to their line-up.

Englishman Wright, who appeared for the Aces last season in the Twenty20 competition, is one of five changes brought about by the departure of the New Zealand A side to the UAE.

The Mondiale Aces lose the top order hitting power of Martin Guptill, Colin Munro and Colin de Grandhomme, as well as Kyle Mills and Mitchell McClenaghan from their bowling stocks.

However with the introduction of Wright and Craig Cachopa they have two proven Twenty20 performers as replacements. Wright has scored 4432 runs in Twenty20’s and is in high demand around the world for his services in the shorter format.

Cachopa is in line to play his first game of the season for the Mondiale Aces and his first as an overseas professional. The game could produce one of cricket’s rarer occurrences of three brothers playing in the same game for the same team if Cachopa is joined by his two older brothers, Brad and Carl, in the line-up.

The other three changes see young top order batsman Robbie O’Donnell and pace bowlers Matt Quinn and Dean Bartlett come into the 13.

Coach Mark O’Donnell is clear about what his side need to do this weekend.

“We need to execute better and we need to deliver on our bowling and game plans. We put ourselves in winnable positions last weekend and then didn’t deliver - we need to make sure that doesn’t happen this weekend.”

The Mondiale Aces face an important weekend where they play two games on consecutive nights with the clash against the Firebirds tonight being followed by another evening game on Saturday against the Central Stags.

A team for the game that starts at 7.10pm tonight at Westpac Stadium, will be named from the following 13 players:

Rob Nicol (Captain)
Dean Bartlett
Michael Bates
Brad Cachopa
Carl Cachopa
Craig Cachopa
Lockie Ferguson
Donovan Grobbelaar
Anaru Kitchen
Tarun Nethula
Robbie O’Donnell
Matt Quinn
Luke Wright

ENDS

© Scoop Media