2024/25
ROUND FIVE
NORTHERN DISTRICTS defeated CANTERBURY by 54 runs
Seddon Park
4-8 March 2025
POINTS IN THIS ROUND:
Northern Districts: 17*
Canterbury: 5
Central Stags: 6
Auckland Aces: 4
Wellington Firebirds: 20
Otago Volts: 5*
* includes penalty for slow over rate
SELECTED MILESTONES
Ken McClure: 50th first-class match
Joe Carter: 10th first-class century
Josh Brown: career best first-class bowling (4/51)
Bharat Popli: ninth first-class century
Zak Foulkes: 50 first-class wickets, career best score (75 not out)
Scott Kuggeleijn: 350 first-class wickets
Kristian Clarke: 4th first-class five-wicket bag
SNAPSHOT:
Canterbury headed into the fifth round of the national first-class championship at the head of the table, and ended it in third place, after outright home wins to both their opponent Northern Districts in Hamilton, and defending champion the Wellington Firebirds in the capital.
The hard-fought match was a top-of-the-table clash at Seddon Park as Northern Districts strive to break their long-running first-class title drought, but a little bit of gloss was taken off their win after slow over rates cost them a point deduction for the second time this season.
DAY ONE
Winning the toss in the big game in Hamilton would be one of the few things that really went to plan for Canterbury captain Cole McConchie and his visiting side.
With a lot of player depth to draw on, Canterbury has traditionally been strong at accruing the full set, or near enough to it, of eight first-innings bonus points from Plunket Shield matches, with the bonus point accrual able to keep a good side in contention, or offer a critical points advantage, by the business end of the season - over teams that may well have had just as many wins.
Northern Districts was meanwhile garnering a less desirable record in the points department, emerging from this match with another point deduction. They will be hoping that those two point deductions don't prove too critical in their own quest to win the Plunket Shield for the first time since 2012.
Hamilton seamer Cooper Rowell had been brought into the ND squad for the first time but was left to run the drinks. He would be busy, running in and out at the breaks in play. Northern had an uncomfortable first session with the bat, reeling at 88/6 by lunchtime, with only Joe Carter surviving from the top order.
He would begin the middle session on 21*, and crucially was still standing in front of the Canterbury attack by tea, by which time he had reached 87* in a much needed eight-wicket stand with Kristian Clarke.
Fraser Sheat had inflicted some massive early damage with the ball, dismissing Henry Cooper and a scoreless Bharat Popli off successive overs. Angus McKenzie then did the same thing to ND captain Jeet Raval, and scoreless Robbie O'Donnell, and the hosts were in trouble at 45/4 in just the 19th over.
But Carter showed both his class and mental strength to fight his way out of a tight corner.
He had taken Northern to 198/7 by tea and, in the last session, helped push ND past the 200 mark in an invaluable 118-run partnership with allrounder Clarke (48).
Carter deservingly raised his bat for a century off 158 balls, that had included 14 boundaries and a six, but leg-spinner Ish Sodhi would break the stand shortly afterwards with Clarke trapped.
Sodhi would come back for Carter as well, the number four becoming the last wicket to fall after reaching 123, with a barrage of late sixes as he began to run out of partners to get ND a total of 278 in 80 fairly action-packed overs.
That meant the full kitty of four bowling bonuses for Canterbury - with Zak Foulkes, Sodhi and McKenzie all contributing braces; while ND took two batting points.
By stumps, Canterbury had endured a rocky start of their own, Sodhi back in the middle as nightwatcher with Henry Nicholls on a start of 21*, both openers back in the pavilion.
DAY TWO
Trailing by 217 overnight, Canterbury would go on to record a first innings deficit of 56 after good shifts for the tall ND pace duo Scott Kuggeleijn (3/61) and Josh Brown who nabbed a career best 4/51 in just his second Plunket Shield appearance, following his 2022 debut.
Brown started his day by gobbling up the catch off Kuggeleijn to remove Sodhi at 81/3, and after wickets kept falling, Nicholls was left needing to find a similar sort of innings to Carter's.
He got small partnerships going with his captain and later, Mitch Hay (30), but no one stuck around long enough to develop the substantial recovery required.
After Nicholls was caught on 52 at 169/7, the Canterbury tail battled against spinner Freddy Walker before being dismissed for 222 inside 61 overs, just one point gleaned from the batting bonus kitty.
The game well advanced, a result was already on the cards as the Northern openers headed out to the middle for the second time in two days, late in the middle session.
By stumps they were 182/4, after some early damage inflicted by Michael Rae, with the match evenly poised. Northern had an overnight lead of 238, still with the six wickets in hand.
Canterbury was delighted to have taken four wickets in the last session - inside 44 overs of the second dig, but two significantly experienced players had locked arms for a partnership, Bharat Popli (48* overnight) and Tim Seifert (40* overnight) both with half centuries in sight.
DAY THREE
Northern sent on to put 380 on the board in their second innings, the overnight pair playing crucial hands.
First drop Popli, at his stoic best, went on to reach 125 of those, his 10th century in the books by lunch.
Seifert meanwhile got his fifty at better than run-a-ball pace, but his luck ran out on 83 when Ken McClure took his second catch of the innings, off Sodhi at 248/5, before the break.
Kristian Clarke | PHOTOSPORT
Clarke got a start before the new ball came into play after the interval, and would again contribute handy lower order runs with his knock of 32 before Canterbury wrapped up the innings, Rae and Sodhi both finishing with three-fors.
Canterbury needed 436 in the fourth innings for the win, a tough, but not impossible, assignment.
By stumps, they were four down, having picked off just over half of the target. Left-handed 22-year-old Matt Boyle, in his breakthrough summer across the formats, had gone past fifty in the last session and would resume on 57*, with Canterbury 223/4 (trailing by 214).
DAY FOUR
Clarke continued a strong all-round game for his side, topping off handy contributions with the bat with his fourth first-class five-wicket bag - his 5/69 making the difference as Canterbury's hopes of victory were snuffed out.
They had given it the proverbial good crack, falling in their quest to chase down 400-plus by just 54 runs, Zak Foulkes left stranded after a career-best 75 not out, in a classic battle between the two all-round youngsters.
Three rounds now remained in the national first-class championship to decide the New Zealand men's first-class champion for 2024/25.
The next matches are in Rangiora, Alexandra and Auckland from Thursday, 13 March 2025.
