Canterbury have gained bragging rights over their South Island neighbours Otago after securing an 80 run win in the Provincial A tournament in Lincoln.
Having posted 267 the Canterbury team were accurate with the ball and made sure that Otago were on the back foot from the get go.
After deciding to bat things didn’t go to plan in the early stages of the innings. Three cheap wickets meant the home side were sitting in the vulnerable position of 54 for three.
It took a great partnership from bright prospects Todd Latham (67) and Henry Nicholls (77) to settle things down for the Canterbury side as they put on 99 for the fourth wicket.
Todd Astle joined Nicholls once Latham had been dismissed and put the pressure back on the Otago bowlers by forming another 93 run partnership to ensure Canterbury would finish with a large total.
Carl Frauenstein added 21 to help lift Canterbury to 267 all out after 47.4 overs.
Young Jacob Duffy was the pick of the bowlers for Otago as he collected figures of five for 54 from 8 overs.
Otago crumbled early and never got on top of the Canterbury attack.
At 40 for four it was clear that the Southerners were going to have produce some magic to turn the game around, but it wasn’t to be.
The middle order put up a fight, with runs from Shaun Fitzgibbon (47) and Mark Craig (30) to make sure the score didn’t look to lopsided, but it had no bearing on the end result.
In the end Otago were all out in the 43rd over for 187. A wag from the tail was the only thing to save Otago from embarrassment.
Ryan McCone was brilliant with the ball and his figures of four for 24 were evident of this.
