2024/25 GRAND FINAL
CANTERBURY beat AUCKLAND ACES by 6 wickets
2 March 2025
University of Otago Oval, Dunedin
All images: PHOTOSPORT
SELECTED MILESTONES
• Simon Keene : List A career best score
• Louis Delport : List A career best score
• Lachie Stackpole : List A career best score
• Louis Delport and Lachie Stackpole : List A Auckland 9th wicket record in matches v Canterbury
• Mitch Hay : List A career best score
Title, defended! @CanterburyCrick win the 2024/25 #FordTrophy with a 6-wicket win over @aucklandcricket featuring a Mitch Hay unbeaten career best half century pic.twitter.com/O95OVnqLtG
— #NZIII (@MargotButcher) March 2, 2025
Defending champion Canterbury dominated the Auckland Aces early with the ball, but a feisty lower order fightback by the Aces put the men's one-day Ford Trophy Final back in the balance - until a class batting display in the Canterbury chase.
After having been invited to bowl first by Auckland Aces skipper Finn Allen, the Cantabrians came running in hot at their Auckland rivals, blasting out early wickets and seizing all the early advantage.
Once again over the three consecutive days of the various 50-over Finals in Dunedin, the toss had been delayed slightly after another cool night led to a damp outfield. But after a mere half-hour delay, normal service resumed on a sunny Southern morning, and the deck looked conducive to a good total.
So unsurprisingly Allen was keen on batting first, but he was the first, big casualty in a strong Aces line-up after Fraser Sheat guided one through his defences at 1/1 in the first over of the match.
Losing Allen for a duck was not on the whiteboard for the Aces, but they had plenty of proven firepower in their ranks and just had to negotiate the tricky first period of play, with the ball swinging and nibbling around.
But by the ninth over, they were on the back foot: three big wickets down. Sheat had kept up the dot ball pressure for his opening partner Zak Foulkes to race in and do what he does best with any hint of movement in the air on offer.
Foulkes had a wicket maiden just in his second over, knocking two of Jock McKenzie's stumps clean out of their holes in a spectacular statement.
The Aces were now 8/2 as their top runscorer Cam Fletcher came out much earlier than he would have liked, to join stoic, experienced opener Sean Solia.
But Foulkes wasn't done, in his opening spell. He had Solia caught on 14, a sharp take by Rhys Mariu in the slips, and the Aces now needed some urgent respite.
Sheat and Foulkes sustained the pressure for a couple more overs before change bowlers Michael Rae and Angus McKenzie came in from the 12th over and did some more damage.
Bevon Jacobs had just taken a streaky boundary, followed by a far more fluent drive for the same result, off consecutive Rae deliveries before chopping him on next ball at 45/4.
Arguably an even bigger wicket followed soon after for McKenzie who cramped up Cam Fletcher - the keeper-batter serving up a catch to Henry Nicholls in the slips at 57/5. All this before the match had even hit 18 overs.
Canterbury was well on top now, with the Aces in danger of a disastrously low total. But they had two serious all-round talents now the form of Jimmy Neesham - fresh off his career-best match-winning century in Friday's Elimination Final, and the classy young striker Simon Keene.
This time it wasn't Neesham's day - he was outfoxed by Ish Sodhi after a run-a-ball 32, a start that would nonetheless prove handy to the Aces' recovery.
Keene kept going for another eight overs after he was joined by the youngster Lachie Stackpole, the 19-year-old fresh off his maiden half century in Friday's Elimination Final.
Ticked for now down the Aces' order, Stackpole was clearly a face for the future as he rustled up his second fifty on the bounce, and ended up top-scoring for his team with an unbeaten 58* off 64 balls.
Keene found a great moment to find his own new one-day best score, as well, as they continued the late order recovery. Keene had put on 58 for the sixth wicket with Neesham and now he and Stackpole put on 33 for the next.
They made it through almost to the 35-over mark, while Sodhi continued to bowl his spell through the middle unchanged. Keene was on the cusp of a fifty when some canny work lured him into popping up a catch for the keeper Mitch Hay, and the Aces were 48/7.
The Aucklanders had kept the late momentum going, with their deep order.
Adi Ashok came in for a good little battle of wits with his leg-spinning opposite number Ish Sodhi - Sodhi (3/53) eventually winning that battle when a reverse sweep exposed Ashok's stumps at 174/8.
But still the Aces weren't taking a step back.
Delport (below) came in then, in the 40th over, swung hard, plied his trademark adventurous glance/ramps, and raced to a brazen 36 off 34 balls. He and Stackpole were a chance of breaking the Aces' ninth wicket record in the process against all teams, but had to settle for the record against Canterbury as they pushed past 200 on the board.
Delport's luck ran out late in the 48th over when Foulkes got his third wicket in a tidy day's work, ultimately returning 3/40 off his 10 overs. The pesky penultimate stand was stopped at 64, and then Rae restricted the 49th to just singles.
Stackpole had already got his second career fifty, three sixes in that mix, but for his trouble in the last over Foulkes landed one on his foot and he would limp his way through the last few deliveries, and his last partner was run out off the last ball.
Stackpole heads in to applause | MBUTCHER
Still, from an unlikely position of 115/6, the Aces had put a much more respectable 250 on the board, and the defending champions would now need five an over if they were to hold on to the trophy.
Nicholls brings up his half century | MBUTCHER
Henry Nicholls was playing in his first Ford Trophy match since early November and, now that he was recovered from his leg injury, he hit his mark immediately with a class fifty.
He shared a 39-run opening stand with Rhys Mariu before the latter was caught behind off Neesham's second delivery of the day.
Nicholls recombined with Matt Boyle who took a run-a-ball 41 before Adi Ashok had him caught in the 23rd.
Then, just minutes after Nicholls reached his milestone, he was stumped off Delport and on his way for 53, at 127/3 just over halfway through the chase.
MBUTCHER
Delport and Ashok were working in tandem for a period, the spinners looking to exert dot-ball pressure on an ageing, baking wicket, while Canterbury's top order had meanwhile eased ahead of the asking rate.
With 124 still needed to win, and seven wickets in hand, captain Cole McConchie headed out in the bright sunshine to join Mitch Hay who was likewise fresh at the crease.
With 20 overs left in the campaign, Canterbury needed 104 at just 5.2 per over, but it was far from easy work against the determined Aucklanders, with Delport (1/33 off his 10 overs) keeping things tight with the ball.
Big Mitch Hay (above) wrested back control with a half century with shots all round the ground that included a six over the roof of the Otago Daily Times Stand, raising the 50-mark shortly before the Canterbury 200 went up on the ball.
The preservation of wickets was proving crucial, meanwhile Assistant Coach Martin Guptill was on the field as a handy sub fielder in the deep for the Aces.
It wasn't enought to stop Hay's six sixes, though, as he blasted to a career best 86* off just 76 balls - Canterbury hitting the accelerator to win with four overs to spare, just as a heat shower burst over the ground.
It had been a red-hot day.
