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Victories for Central, Otago, and a no result have shaken up the table in the Ford Trophy!
Central Stags vs Auckland Aces:
The Aces were able to get off to a solid start with the bat as ex-Central Stag George Worker and Cole Briggs put on a ninety-run stand for the opening wicket.
They did find it hard to score early on but once Briggs got settled into his work he was to get going. Just as he was looking like he’d bring up 50, he came down the pitch to Ajaz Patel and missed the ball with Dane Cleaver whipping the bails off.
Mark Chapman found little help in the wicket and also tried to take Patel on with a shot straight down the ground and into Jack Boyle’s hands.
When Worker went in the 32nd over for 56, this brought about a collapse for the visitors with Robbie O’Donnell making eight, Cam Fletcher getting six, Ryan Harrison five, and Jock McKenzie falling LBW for a four-ball duck.
Louis Delport and Angus Olliver, alongside Will O’Donnell, did attack during the latter stages of the innings with Delport striking 28 from 21, Olliver 17 from 12, and O’Donnell making 35.
Auckland posted 233/10 from 49.1 overs with Patel getting three wickets, and then two for Ray Toole, Blair Tickner and Jayden Lennox. Josh Clarkson got one wicket.
Central lost Boyle inside the powerplay for five as he struggled to get going with some tight bowling by Olliver and Ben Lister early on.
However, the experienced Brad Schmulian and youngster Curtis Heaphy were able to put on a vital 121-run stand for the second wicket.
With the required rate sitting at around six runs per over for a while for the Stags, Heaphy decided to try and get going off Delport with a reverse shot but found the hands of Worker for 52.
Cleaver smashed a few welcome boundaries in his quickfire 35 from 27 and along with Clarkson who put on a run a ball 28, left the Stags with just 13 runs to win and over three overs to go.
Schmulian brought up his maiden List A 100 from 122 balls and was able to hit the winning runs in the final over alongside Will Clark (8*) to give the Stags a six-wicket win.
Wellington Firebirds vs Otago Volts:
Otago struggled with the bat early as Luke Georgeson (2), Jacob Cumming (8), and Dean Foxcrof (6) all went inside the first 12 overs of the match to Adam Milne, Logan van Beek, and Ben Sears respectively.
Off the back of a fifty in the last match, Thorn Parkes and Dale Phillips restored the innings with a solid 73-run stand for the fourth wicket.
However, with Parkes falling for 30, Phillips for 57, and Max Chu for three, the Volts were in serious trouble at 126/6.
Things got even worse with Llew Johnson only adding 15, Matt Bacon making two and Ben Lockrsoe getting nine before falling with the score at 147/9.
Luckily for the visitors, Andrew Hazeldine was able to strike an impressive 54* from just 26 balls at number 10 with five fours and four sixes alongside Jacob Duffy got 27 from 15 with two fours and two sixes.
The pair put on the highest 10th wicket List A partnership for Otago against all sides, beating the 67 that had previously been made between Nathan Smith and Michael Rae back in the 2020/21 season.
The pair put on 79 runs for the 10th wicket to push Otago up to 226/10 from 44.4 overs.
Wellington got off to an all-right start with Gareth Severin (17) and Nick Greenwood (13) opening up. Both of the openers did fall in two balls to leave them two down inside the powerplay.
The Wellington middle order could add very little with Nick Kelly making 15 while Callum McLachlan got six and Jesse Tashkoff made a duck.
With Otago gaining momentum they would need a big lower-order partnership to put themselves in a position to push for victory.
Nathan Smith and Troy Johnson did just this as they piled on 76 runs for the sixth wicket until Georgeson grabbed his fourth wicket of the day with Smith out for 37.
He soon had a five-wicket haul as van Beek went for 13.
Johnson was trying his best to keep pushing and get the required runs but when they lost Milne for four, the pressure started to fall on Wellington.
Soon, Johnson was also walking back for an excellent 83, just not able to do enough however to get his side across the line.
Georgeson ran out Sears and the Volts took a thrilling 15-run victory.
Canterbury vs Northern Districts:
Chad Bowes found some early success with the bat for Canterbury but gained little support from the rest of the top order as they slipped to 72/4 inside 15 overs.
Henry Nicholls went early for two with Brett Hampton getting the wicket whilst Leo Carter (0) and Mitch Hay (20) both fell to Kristian Clarke.
Ewald Schreuder managed to also grab a wicket on debut with Cole McConchie perishing for just two.
Michael Rippon (36), BJ Jacobs (35), Zak Foulkes (47), and Angus McKenzie (37) all added some superb lower-order scoring to back up Bowes’ 74 at the top of the order.
After their early success with the ball, Northern would have felt they were on top until the middle to lower order went about their business with high scores recorded for Jacobs and Foulkes.
They were able to push their way to 273/10 from 49.3 overs with three wickets to Hampton whilst two to Joe Walker and Clarke.
Northern lost two early wickets with Katene Clarke falling to Frasher Sheat for 16 and Tim Seifert to Foulkes for three.
At the end of the powerplay, Northern had just 29 runs on the board, but rain fell for the rest of the evening and just when it looked like play was going to get underway the rain came back.
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