The Northern Knights registered their one hundredth first-class win in beating the Central Stags in a late finish at the Harry Barker Reserve in Gisborne.
After being dismissed for a duck in the first innings James Marshall scored the thirty nine runs he needed to pass Andy Roberts as the most prolific runscorer for Northern. He has now scored 5,538 runs for the Knights, five runs ahead of Roberts.
Brad Watling and Hamish Marshall scored half-centuries in each innings for the Knights with Watling passing three thousand runs for them in the process. Following the match Hamish Marshall (3,911) and Joe Yovich (3,954) are both poised to reach the four thousand run milestone for Northern.
Although they were in a losing cause, Mathew Sinclair and Kruger van Wyk produced a record fifth wicket partnership of 222 for the Stags against the Knights. Sinclair went on to finish with 121, his twenty fifth century for Central, while van Wyk scored his second Stags century and finished the match just four runs short of a thousand for them.
The Zimbabwean test bowler, Kyle Jarvis, claimed five for 58 on his Central debut. He is the first Stags bowler since Ian Fisher in 1989-90 to finish with a five wicket bag on debut.
Trent Boult continued the form that saw him selected for the Black Caps, taking five for 69 and removing the top of the Central batting in their second innings. It was his fifth five wicket bag for the Knights, but his first against the Stags.
Daniel Vettori made little impression with the bat or ball in this match but he did equal Brian Pairaudeau's record of five catches in a match for Northern against Central.
Colin Munro, in his first match for the Auckland Aces against the Otago Volts, rescued their batting twice and scored his maiden first-class century in the first innings. Together with Gareth Hopkins he added 114 for the Aces sixth wicket to help them to a narrow first innings lead.
Mitchell McClenaghan, in his first match for the Aces, finished with figures of six for 87 in the Volts first innings. Like the last player to claim a five wicket bag on debut for the Aces, Richard Sherlock, he had previously played for the Central Stags.
Derek de Boorder, in his first match as captain of the Volts, scored a fifty in each innings but was unable to help his team to victory.
Tim McIntosh scored his second pair for the Aces after being unfortunately being run out in the second innings. He is the eleventh Auckland player to score two pairs but no player has as yet registered a third pair for them.
At Rangiora Josh Brodie followed up his fifty in the first innings with a career best 116 in the second innings to help the Wellington Firebirds come from behind to beat the Canterbury Wizards. He was involved in three century partnerships in the match. He and Jesse Ryder became just the fifth Wellington pairing to share century partnerships in each innings.
Jesse Ryder batted in both innings as though he was playing T20 cricket. He brought up is fifty in the first innings in 34 balls and was one ball quicker in reaching his second innings half-century.
Harry Boam claimed his first five wicket bag in finishing with 6 for 51 in the Wizards first innings while Logan van Beek did likewise for the Wizards as his figures of 5 for 42 enabled to Wizards to gain a 133 run first innings lead.
But Mark Gillespie, with career best figures of 6 for 41, ran through the Canterbury batting in their second innings to restrict the Firebirds chase to under three hundred after it seemed earlier that they would be chasing substantially more. It was his tenth five wicket bag for the Firebirds.
The unfortunate Todd Astle scored his third pair for the Wizards joining Dan McBeath and Brian Hastings who had also previously suffered this ignominy on three occasions.
Rather unusually both the Canterbury Wizards opening batsmen (George Worker and Tom Latham) were left-handed while both their opening bowlers (Willie Lonsdale and Ryan McCone) were left-armers although Ryan McCone was injured and unable to bowl in the Wellington second innings.
Matt McEwan made his first-class debut for the Wizards and was playing alongside Tom Latham. Both their fathers, Paul McEwan and Rod Latham, had played together for Canterbury in the nineteen eighties. They are not the first set of fathers and sons to have played together for Canterbury with Walter Hadlee and Mac Anderson having played together while their sons, Robert Anderson and Barry Hadlee, played one match together in 1967-68.
A quick search has also thrown up the following father and son combinations that played together. For Auckland there is Giff Vivian and Merv Wallace and their sons Graham Vivian and Greg Wallace. Northern Districts provide the father and son pairings of Wynne Bradburn and Don Beard and Grant Bradburn and Derek Beard. Otago provide three father and son combinations - Billy Ibadulla and Stewart McKnight and Kassem Ibadulla and Ken McKnight, Stu McCullum and Ken Rutherford and Nathan McCullum and Hamish Rutherford and Stu McCullum and Mark Bracewell and sons Nathan McCullum and Michael Bracewell. In the case of Greg Wallace and Mark Bracewell they were playing their only first-class match.
