2024/25
ROUND FOUR
NORTHERN DISTRICTS drew with CENTRAL STAGS
Bay Oval, Mount Maunganui
7-10 December 2024
POINTS IN THIS ROUND:
Canterbury: 8
Central Stags: 8
Wellington Firebirds: 7
Auckland Aces: 7
Otago Volts: 4
Northern Districts: 3
SELECTED MILESTONES
All images: PHOTOSPORT
Jack Harris: Central Stags and first-class debut
Brad Schmulian: 50th first-class match, seventh first-class century
Will Clark: maiden first-class bag
Will Clark: maiden first-class century
Will Clark: 4th player in NZ first-class Domestic cricket to achieve a maiden double
Brett Randell: 100 first-class wickets
Jeet Raval: 27th first-class century
Jeet Raval: New Zealand record slowest first-class century (by minutes)
SNAPSHOT:
File it under 'fascinating draw' or 'breakthrough performance'. Young Stags allrounder Will Clark joined exclusive company by achieving his maiden bag and maiden century in the same match.
But defiant ND captain Jeet Raval almost broke a world record for the slowest first-class century in reply, in a classic arm wrestle in this top-of-the-table clash.
View this post on Instagram
DAY ONE
After a short ground delay on a blue-sky morning with a green carpet of a deck, visiting captain Tom Bruce won toss and bowled, with an injury-depleted, youngish attack including debutant Jack Harris, a strong paceman from Palmerston North.
Chances went begging early, but Brett Randell - a Stag playing in his home town, away - grabbed the early wicket of Raval nicking off, while allrounder Will Clark soon removed both Henry Cooper and Robbie O'Donnell for little damage.
But Popli dug in and lunch, at 98/3, was an uneasy truce.
In the afternoon, the Stags brought their A game. Popli was always going to be the big wicket on his home turf, with a strong track record against Central and on his home turf. He would bat for almost four hours for his 61 to give his side's innings some ballast.
The Stags attacked the other end, Harris getting his first two wickets (2/32) with Neil Wagner his maiden victim, followed by Freddy Walker in this following over.
But the star of the afternoon was the robust young Clark. Having often been a promising bit-part player for the team in this format, he stepped up with his maiden first-class five-wicket bag, 5/62 off 14 overs.
View this post on Instagram
Thanks to his efforts, ND was all out by tea for 204, on what was now a warm, overcast afternoon.
The Stags had banked the full set of bowling bonuses while ND had just one batting point after their tough start to the top-of-the-table constest at the halfway mark of the championship.
By stumps, the Stags had slashed their immediate deficit to 108, with Jack Boyle the only man to fall - nicking Kristian Clarke to Raval at slip; and Curtis Heaphy unbeaten on 46*.
DAY TWO
The Plunket Shield leaders, ND began the second morning keen to re-assert themselves in the contest, hungry for early wickets as the Stags resumed at 96/1 needing just 108 further runs for the first innings lead.
Opener Heaphy found the four runs he needed for a half century, and the Stags the four runs they needed to get the 100 on the board, and he carried on to a patient 63, before falling to Matt Fisher.
His score would be overshadowed by the end of the day, but did some important set-up work for his contemporary, Clark.
There was a burst of excitement for the hosts when captain Tom Bruce (golden duck) and form horse Dane Cleaver (9) fell in swift succession: Fisher suddenly had three as the Stags went from 126/2 to 138/4.
But a racy, double-century partnership for the fifth wicket stopped the rot and thoroughly dampened the hosts' mood.
By lunch, the Stags were 240/4 wth Brad Schmulian and Clark both having reached their half centuries.
Clark had galloped to his fifty off 60 balls, and after they saw off the new ball, later overtook Schmulian en route to his maiden century. Clark became just the fifth Stag to do the first-class double in 74 years of Plunket Shield matches, and maiden milestones with both bat and ball in the same match were even rarer.
The 23-year-old's maiden ton came off just 117 balls, with 14 boundaries and a six, and the fifth-wicket stand just get motoring. It grew to 200 soon after, and then it was Schmulian's turn to raise his bat again - his seventh first-class hundred and third on Bay Oval, where he himself had scored a maiden century on debut, against this team.
That was the New Zealand record for a debut score: 203.
View this post on Instagram
Schmulian's three figures came up off 193 balls and by tea, the Stags were in a strong position at 353/5. Clark had departed to a standing ovation on 109 after Wagner finally cracked the big stand, and Wagner would come back for Schmulian (108) after the break.
Despite some flurries from Ajaz Patel (24), ND's attack rallied in the last session and ran through the lower order to bowl out the Stags for 391, the Stags once again taking the full four bonuses.
Fisher ended with four wickets, while Central had a lead of 187. By stumps, ND had reduced that to 164.
DAY THREE
A change in the weather loomed on the forecast, and, a dramatic change in the pace of the match after Raval found himself needing to knuckle down to save his team's positon.
After nearly nine and a half hours of undiluted resolve at the batting crease, the Northern Districts captain came within seven minutes of claiming an unusual world record.
Raval reached a marathon century in 551 minutes - just six minutes quicker than the slowest first-class cricket century of all time, a record held by retired Pakistan international Mudassar Nazar, set against England in Lahore in 1977/78.
View this post on Instagram
The veteran ND skipper almost apologetically raised his bat off the first ball after lunch, scampering a tight single in the arm wrestle with the Central Stags.
The opener had gone to lunch on 99 not out after digging in to rescue his side from a difficult position, and he pushed them on, slowly, into an overall lead.
Raval's dogged century ranks as follows:
- 557 minutes - Mudassar Nazar, Pakistan v England, Lahore 1977/78
- 556 minutes - S Ramesh, Tamil Nadu v Kerala, Chennai 2001/02
- 551 minutes - Jeet Raval, ND v Central Stags, Mt Maunganui 2024/25
As NZC statistician Francis Payne quipped: "If only he's blocked that first over after lunch."
Raval finally fell shortly afterwards, becoming his former teammate Randell's 100th first class-wicket. His innings had ended on 107, constructed in 589 stoic minutes.
Northern Districts now held a modest overall lead of 129, with three wickets remaining on a flat deck, in the second to last session of the year.
The mission was clear: the chances of a win were toast, but they still needed to prevent the Stags from snaring a valuable outright.
DAY FOUR
Canterbury's five-wicket win against the Otago Volts at the end of this day in Rangiora would see Canterbury overtake both Northern Districts and the Central Stags for the coveted top the table spot, as the competition breaks now for the Dream11 Super Smash competition window.
The stymy at the Mount, the battle in the Bay, would cost both the Districts teams.
A swashbuckling 59 not out from Neil Wagner livened up proceedings and denied the Stags the outright points they had coveted. Still, with eight bonuses, Central had almost closed the gap on their rivals, now only one point behins them on the ladder, in the top three.
The match concluded with Stags wicketkeeper-batter Dane Cleaver dotting down for his very first over of Domestic cricket as a bowler, the erstwhile leg-spinner showing his versatility as he sent down four medium pace deliveries followed by two off-spin deliveries (after apparently tweaking his side) for a maiden, before the captains shook hands.
View this post on Instagram
The match would prove a costly one for Ajaz Patel who, after a workload of 41 overs in the second innings, would head to injury tent for the next couple of months for work on his knee, missing the remainder of the Stags' white-ball summer.
The back half of the eight-round Plunket Shield will begin in early March, following the conclusion of The Ford Trophy Finals, with Canterbury now holding a narrow four-point championship lead, after ND and Central duked it out in this hard-fought draw.
