Sinclair dominates Plunket Shield round seven stats

Mathew Sinclair may have just missed out on becoming the first player to have scored two thousand runs for one association against another during the last round, but he made no mistake in this round scoring the sixty runs he needed to accomplish the feat for the Central Stags against the Auckland Aces.  Following the second innings he took his aggregate against the Aces to 2,048.           
           
Only Bert Sutcliffe has scored more against one association, however the 2,168 runs he scored against Canterbury were scored for three associations - Auckland, Otago and Northern Districts.           
           
Craig Cachopa scored his maiden first-class century to anchor the Stags successful chase for 340 for victory, sharing a stand of 108 for the fourth wicket with Kieran Noema-Barnett.           
           
Gareth Hopkins also scored a century and with Mitch McClenaghan rescued the Aces first innings from 95 for seven, adding 101 for the eighth wicket. He scored another thirty two in the second innings to take his career tally for the Aces past two thousand runs.           

Bruce Martin collected his second six wicket bag in consecutive games, however his six for 38 was a lot less expensive than his previous effort, six for 187 against the Wellington Firebirds.           
           
Kyle Jarvis has proved a shrewd buy for the Central Stags picking up his second five wicket bag and taking his record to twenty one wickets at 14.62 in three matches.    
       
Hamish Rutherford emulated his father by scoring centuries in each innings for the Otago Volts against the Northern Knights at Hamilton. Ken Rutherford achieved the feat at Alexandra back in the 1985-86 season. The last player to score twin centuries in a match was the man Rutherford replaced in this match, Aaron Redmond, who managed the feat in last season's match between the two teams at the same venue.           
           
When Rutherford and Craig Cumming put on 153 for the first wicket in Otago's second innings this was the first stand of this amount in the six hundred and twenty nine match history of Otago first-class cricket.  Only three partnerships of a lesser amount have yet to be recorded by the Volts - 133, 142 and 149.           
           
Daniel Flynn made it back-to-back centuries for the Knights against the Volts. He followed his record 241 against them last season with 113 not out in the Knights first innings. This was his fourth century against the Volts, all at Hamilton.           
           
Mitchell Santner, one of three replacements brought in during the match for Northern's Black Caps, conceded the most runs by a Knights bowler against Otago when going for one hundred and seventy six runs in the match.           
           
Derek de Boorder claimed five wicketkeeping victims in the Knights second innings (four catches and one stumping) to equal the Otago record against Northern Districts.           
           
There were three century partnerships during the match between the Wellington Firebirds and Canterbury Wizards at the Basin Reserve.  The most crucial was the last one as Harry Boam and Craig Cachopa (in just his second match) added 124 for the Firebirds seventh wicket to save the match for Wellington.              
           
Earlier Michael Papps had added an unbeaten 163 with Stephen Murdoch for the Wellington second wicket before Grant Elliott declared the Wellington innings once Murdoch reached his fourth century. Then George Worker and Peter Fulton put on 117 for the Canterbury first wicket, exactly the same amount they had added for the Wizards second wicket in the match at Rangiora between the two teams earlier in the year.           
           
There were six replacements allowed during this round as players left to join the Black Caps squad in Dunedin. Daryl Tuffey played his first match for the season replacing Chris Martin for the Aces. Will Young made his first-class debut replacing Ross Taylor for the Stags, while James de Terte was a late replacement for Kruger van Wyk. There were three replacements for the Northern Knights with Anton Devcich, Brandon Hiini and Mitchell Santner coming in for Daniel Vettori, Brent Arnel and Trent Boult.           
           
Such was the weather and the way the three matches went that of the New Zealand players Arnel, Boult, Taylor and van Wyk didn't feature with the bat or ball, although van Wyk and Taylor did claim catches. Vettori and Martin did bat while Martin also managed a six over bowling spell.  Of the replacements de Terte didn't bat, bowl or take a catch.