ROUND 7 of 10
NORTHERN DISTRICTS lost to CENTRAL STAGS by six wickets
- bonus point win -
10 February 2025
Cobham Oval, Whangārei
Points: ND 0, Central Stags 5
All images: PHOTOSPORT
SELECTED MILESTONES
- Rohit Gulati: List A debut
- Rohit Gulati: maiden List A wicket (Jack Boyle)
- Brett Randell: Fourth List A five-wicket bag (third for Central Stags)
The Dream11 Super Smash champions kept their Ford Trophy comeback on track, inching up into the top three with a well controlled chase in their latest away win.
*
A string of cheap top and middle order wickets cost Northern Districts big-time after they had elected to bat at their northernmost ground.
The Stags were a confident unit, fresh off their T20 title and a strong one-day win in Auckland, while for Northern their third consecutive defeat in the one-day format beckoned.
Blair Tickner made the opening breakthrough at 13/1 in the fourth over, and by the time Brett Hampton came in at seven, the hosts were under the pump at 71/5 halfway through the allotted overs.
Northern had just lost captain Raval, and they were about to lose another big wicket in Robbie O'Donnell in the following over, both falling to the spinners.
Hampton's century partnership with next-man-in Ben Pomare was the only thing that gave Northern a chance.
The vital seventh-wicket stand reached 111, and began to frustrate the Stags who saw their sustained pressure melt away.
That was until Brett Randell went on a late rampage running through the lower order, finishing with his second consecutive bag.
It was ex-Northerner Randell who removed both batters, Hampton caught on 58 off 54 balls in the 46th, and Pomare trapped soon after on 63.
They'd hit four sixes and seven boundaries between them, and every one of them was needed.
Randell now had three, and bolted to his bag with two in two in the final over, Northern dismissed for 210 with a ball to spare.
Arguably, however, the wicket of the day belonged to the Northern debutant Rohit Gulati.
Left-arm spinner Gulati had already made his T20 debut against the Stags this year taking 3/20, and now it was his first one-dayer against most of the same faces.
He claimed first drop Jack Boyle as his maiden wicket, diving low, at almost full stretch, for a class caught and bowled to send Boyle back on 16.
The Stags had already lost Dane Cleaver early to Hampton, and there was a glimmer of hope for ND that they could fight there way back into the contest with the ball.
But the Stags always seem to find one or two men to stand up with the bat, and today it was Brad Schmulian who had opened the innings with Cleaver and just kept trucking for an unbeaten 74*.
Tom Bruce, fresh off his career best century, helped build a second consecutive 50-stand, after Boyle's dismissal.
Schmulian, a hard batter to dismiss with his bespoke technique and low stance, anchored the chase for 163 minutes.
After Bruce fell to spinner Freddie Walker, and local lad Henry Cooper took care of Curtis Heaphy, Schmulian found another willing partner in Josh Clarkson who tonked an unbeaten 62* off just 38 balls to give the Stags their best shot at a bonus point.
Clarkson hit six boundaries and three sixes on the big ground, finishing the game with a six bang on the 40-over mark for that handy point.
The Stags had crept from fifth to fourth on their previous game, and now overtook the Firebirds to hold the third position, narrowly. Canterbury and the Auckland Aces were now watching their backs.
