Cricket: Dumped batter Henry Nicholls overcomes ball-tampering charges to fight for Blackcaps spot

Discarded Blackcaps batsman Henry Nicholls has a chance to shut the book on one of most turbulent periods of his career.

The 56-test veteran is playing for Canterbury in the Ford Trophy one-day final, after missing selection in the test team to face Australia. That came amid the stress of being cleared of ball tampering.

Fair to say, the past few months have been a bit of a rollercoaster for Nicholls.

"Yeah, I guess you always have a range of emotions when you are left out, after having played a period of time with the team," he told Newshub.

Being dropped from the Blackcaps test squad came on the back of an even bigger shock. In November, he came under an unwanted spotlight, after being accused of ball tampering in a four-day match against Auckland.

He was later cleared of any wrongdoing.

"I was fairly philosophical about it and knew the independent investigation would go through the process," he said. "To be cleared of it was nice for me and I'm really just moving on from it."

Move on he has. Since the Blackcaps omission, Nicholls has scored 295 runs in five 50-over innings for Canterbury at an average of more than 98.

"That's all you can do," said Canterbury coach Peter Fulton. "Henry was really disappointed, I suppose, to be left out of the team and he's been excellent.

"His attitude is always really good. His job is to score runs and hopefully win us games."

Nicholls hopes the run of form continues, when they meet Auckland again in Saturday's final.

"To get your way back in is through runs effectively," he said. "Certainly, helping Canterbury win games is big focus at the moment.

"We've had a big run over the last month and hopefully that continues on Saturday."

If it does, Nicholls finds himself back in the national fold before too long.

Discarded Blackcaps batsman Henry Nicholls has a chance to shut the book on one of most turbulent periods of his career.

The 56-test veteran is playing for Canterbury in the Ford Trophy one-day final, after missing selection in the test team to face Australia. That came amid the stress of being cleared of ball tampering.

Fair to say, the past few months have been a bit of a rollercoaster for Nicholls.

"Yeah, I guess you always have a range of emotions when you are left out, after having played a period of time with the team," he told Newshub.

Being dropped from the Blackcaps test squad came on the back of an even bigger shock. In November, he came under an unwanted spotlight, after being accused of ball tampering in a four-day match against Auckland.

He was later cleared of any wrongdoing.

"I was fairly philosophical about it and knew the independent investigation would go through the process," he said. "To be cleared of it was nice for me and I'm really just moving on from it."

Move on he has. Since the Blackcaps omission, Nicholls has scored 295 runs in five 50-over innings for Canterbury at an average of more than 98.

"That's all you can do," said Canterbury coach Peter Fulton. "Henry was really disappointed, I suppose, to be left out of the team and he's been excellent.

"His attitude is always really good. His job is to score runs and hopefully win us games."

Nicholls hopes the run of form continues, when they meet Auckland again in Saturday's final.

"To get your way back in is through runs effectively," he said. "Certainly, helping Canterbury win games is big focus at the moment.

"We've had a big run over the last month and hopefully that continues on Saturday."

If it does, Nicholls finds himself back in the national fold before too long.

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