Will Young’s bold call to step down from a successful Central Stags captaincy couldn’t have worked out much better.

This week, the 26-year-old became one of the rare players to be contracted by NZC before he’s even represented the BLACKCAPS — and two of his captaincy successors, Greg Hay and Tom Bruce, meanwhile had kept the Stags on a winning roll domestically with a solid Plunket Shield title defence and the Burger King Super Smash trophy in the CD cabinet.

Being centrally contracted by NZC is an honour reserved for just 20 of New Zealand’s best players, so Young’s elevation is another signal that his renewed focus on his batting game is taking him to the top.

After having been included in the wider BLACKCAPS squad in 2018/19 as batting cover, in March a media conference was held at which he was even named to make his Test debut against Bangladesh at Hagley Oval the following day, to replace an injured Kane Williamson. However, the third test was cancelled following the Christchurch mosque attacks. 

Young and evergreen Ross Taylor are CDCA’s two contributions to the 2019/20 NZC contracted players list, homegrown talents raised in Taranaki and Masterton, respectively. At opposite stages of their international career (not that Ross Taylor is anywhere near done!) the pair each put together a gold-plated summer.

Young, who had captained the likes of Ish Sodhi at the ICC U19 World Cup, started the season with the New Zealand A team — one level down from the BLACKCAPS — on tour against Pakistan in the UAE, and then back home in New Zealand in a series against India A.

He scored a first-class century (123) against the strong India A team in an impressive seven-and-a-half-hour innings, and had an unbeaten red ball 74* against Pakistan A in Dubai.

Young also produced a one-day ton against Pakistan A — 136 at run-a-ball pace — in Abu Dhabi in October, and then another against India A at Bay Oval in December, a stylish knock of 102 after which he was called into the BLACKCAPS squad for the first time.

He would then be on the fringes of the team for the rest of the season, training with the squad as cover before international matches, then dashing back to the Central Stags in between.

With the Stags, it was meanwhile a chance this season to demonstrate more versatility. Young — previously a number four or first drop — moved up to open in the Burger King Super Smash. He shone in the crunch Elimination Final against the Auckland Aces, blasting 83 off 54 balls as he and Dane Cleaver smashed a match-winning stand of 143, a new fourth wicket record for the Stags that took them into the Grand Final.

Young didn’t play in The Ford Trophy at all due to scheduling conflicts with New Zealand A, but when he returned to the Plunket Shield he made another big impact with his seventh first-class century — a masterly knock of 150 against the Otago Volts in Napier, the second-highest innings of his career behind his 162 two summers ago.

Overall, Young averages almost 42 in first-class cricket, but significantly his batting average in 2018/19 was in the mid-50s — the highest of his eight seasons to date. So the bold move to refocus on his batting, without the additional mental burden of captaincy, has well and truly paid off.

NZC’s selection manager Gavin Larsen said the NZC contract offer was “on the basis of the sheer weight of runs he scored last season, both for New Zealand A and the Central Stags.”

Young has just touched down in Brisbane where he’s one of five Stags — alongside Seth Rance, Doug Bracewell, Blair Tickner and George Worker — in a New Zealand XI squad that will play three one-dayers against an Australia XI as part of World Cup contingency planning.

Ross Taylor is meanwhile already in England, preparing in the same conditions he will face with the BLACKCAPS in their forthcoming 2019 World Cup tilt. After a season with Sussex, and then the 2018 UK summer with Nottingham, the highly regarded star made his debut for Middlesex last month with a one-day half century.

Taylor’s achievements in 2018/19 included another Test double century amid a 60-plus batting average in the five home Tests of the summer. He averaged 70-plus in ODIs (including another century) and 37 in the T20is as his tally of New Zealand all-time batsmanship records increased along the way.

That the 35-year-old shows no hint of slowing down — if anything, he’s back to his dominant best — and has now been recontracted for another year is something that will excite everyone who loves following New Zealand cricket.

Just as exciting is having another Central Stag standing in the wings. Young will surely get to make that long awaited BLACKCAPS debut at some stage in the coming 12 months and all the team at CDCA congratulate both Taylor and Young on their contract offers.

Make sure you’re following our Central Stags facebook http://www.facebook.com/CentralStagsNZ/ and Instagram http://www.instagram.com/centralstags/ pages over the coming week where we’ll have exclusive pics and all the latest from Will Young and the NZ A lads in Brisbane.

And, stay tuned for the first round of Central Stags contract offers for 2019/20 that will be revealed in the coming weeks.

Article added: Friday 03 May 2019