The glamour and glitz provided by the cast of international players sprinkled throughout the teams for this year's HRV Cup will produce closer, more exciting matches, Central Districts coach Alan Hunt believes.
Hunt welcomes the influx of foreign players -- each team, Canterbury having signed as many as four, are allowed to use two of them for each match -- and felt an air of unpredictability had been imposed on the competition.
Central Districts bring imposing form into the competition which begins tomorrow with a match against Northern Districts.
They arrive in Hamilton having won their first three matches of the Plunket Shield four-day competition and apart from minor niggles, Hunt says his squad is ready to take on the short version of the game despite the brief turnaround.
He is anticipating a tough match as he thought Northern Districts was probably posed the biggest threat to his team's hopes of qualifying a second straight time for the lucrative world Champions League.
"As defending champions, it comes with its own pressures and we are well aware people will be trying to knock us off our perch," Hunt told NZPA.
"The reality is that with the influx of overseas players, I think it has evened out the competition to a large extent with the big names who are match winning type of players right across the competition.
"I wouldn't be surprised to see every team beating each other and I think it will be quite a tight competition.
"When they have their New Zealand players back and have two of their three foreign players on show, I think Northern Districts will be a formidable side. The others are fairly even in my view."
Northern's marquee will be lit up by Herschelle Gibbs (South Africa) and Australians Brad Hodge, David Hussey and David Warner.
Wellington will have fiery Australian fast bowler Brett Lee and England international Luke Wright while Canterbury have Australian paceman Shaun Tait, Netherlands all rounder Ryan ten Doeschate, South African Johan van der Wath and Durham's Mitchell Claydon to their roster.
Auckland have listed former Black Cap Andre Adams as one of their imports and added Hampshire namesake, Jimmy Adams while Otago have signed English county players Darren Stevens (Kent) and Chris Nash (Sussex).
Central will have English all rounders Michael Yardy and Ian Blackwell for the duration of the month-long competition, something Hunt feels will be an advantage in terms of building continuity and team spirit.
There was also the longer term in mind.
"To qualify for Champions League, you need to have some international quality players in your group that adds to your competitiveness on the world stage and when we looked at recruiting, we were certainly aware of that.
"We know we lose (New Zealand vice-captain) Ross Taylor if his (Bangalore, India) team qualified for the Champions League so we have to be able to compensate for that by having access to other players who may not have qualified from their countries.
"The intention is to make the Champions League again . . . so that's an aim sure."
The competition ends with the final on Jan 2 between the top two teams after double round-robin play which will absorb the whole of December.
NZPA
