Three centuries, 605 runs, smashed records and a fine Wellington day made for one of the great Ford Trophy Grand Final showdowns.
Canterbury and the Central Stags both turned up to play and put on a memorable day’s cricket at the Cello Basin Reserve in the last Domestic white-ball match for the 2025/26 summer.
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For top qualifier Canterbury, this was always going to be a special match.
It was head Coach Peter Fulton’s last appointment with the team after six impressive seasons before departing for his new job at Middlesex, and his team was fired up to send him off to Departures with a threepeat of Ford Trophy championship titles.
After a strong, front-running season and back-to-back titles in this competition over the past two years, winning the toss and putting a 300+ score in a final on the tins at the Basin, they had every right to believe.
Canterbury captain Henry Nicholls has had a special summer, so has his senior ally at the top of the order, Tom Latham at the top of their game.
Both belted more than 500 runs in the campaign and Nicholls had already broken Canterbury’s record for most centuries in one summer (three).
An Arsenal homage from Henry Nicholls | PHOTOSPORT
Now he extended that to four, with his 115 off 125 balls — equalling George Worker’s record for most centuries by any batter, any team in a Ford Trophy summer, Worker having done so for the Auckland Aces just a couple of years back.
Surely there was one hand on the trophy. The Central Stags batters would need to back up from a huge effort just two days for in the Elimination Final. Teams just don’t chase down big totals very often in a Final. And so on.
However, the Stags held an entirely different opinion of how this game should play out.
Rewinding to the start of the day, Nicholls elected to bat and would end with 538 runs for The Ford Trophy summer which is also the third highest tally overall in a Canterbury season.
Tom Latham | all images: PHOTOSPORT
On the kind of deck that needed caution and time to get in, Nicholls and Latham steadily slathered on 185 together off 190 balls for the second wicket, holding court for some 31 overs togethers on a cool, breezy morning that developed nicely, rather like their partnership, into a fine, bright afternoon.
Latham’s own strong vein of Domestic form carried on to see him within sight of a century himself, reaching 80.
He and Nicholls broke Canterbury’s all-time second wicket record stand in their matches against the Stags - the previous had been 166 by Latham himself and Chad Bowes, who had been an early loss on this occasion, last year.
At 194/1, Canterbury should have had the perfect launching pad after a classy display in working the ball, turning over the strike, and building the proverbial platform. But after Nicholls departed in the 35th at 194/2, the Stags bowled themselves back into it.
He was followed by Rhys Mariu, caught off Ray Toole (2/65) after a quick 28.
Toole had enjoyed his left-arm match-up with Nicholls and, while it was spinner Angus Schaw who got the big wicket (Nicholls, trapped), he and Randell came back and put the squeeze on Canterbury, preventing them from capitalising on their base.
Cricket is a game full of statistics and Randell had his 100th one-day wicket when Latham was caught, straight after Mariu’s departure, Dean Foxcroft providing a moment of fielding brilliance with a sharp catch at cover, sticking his hand up for a stinger at 237/4.
He could scarcely believe it himself.
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Canterbury unravelled somewhat then, the score becoming 290/7 at the death as they lost vital momentum. Ultimately they just squeaked past a 300-total, when a much bigger statement had been on the cards for so long.
Still, a chase of 303 in a final is no doddle.
The Stags’ innings began as almost a mirror image of Canterbury’s as they lost an early wicket, Brad Schmulian unable to add to his two centuries this season.
Again it was the second-wicket stand that defined the innings. Curtis Heaphy and Will Young joined forced as the sun began streaming down after lunch.
Heaphy had taken on a big workload for the day. The Stags had lost their senior keeper-batter Dane Cleaver from the XI when his back seized up just before play and Heaphy — who had kept for the team before — took the keeping gloves.
Heaphy had scored a century the last time these two sides met, in Nelson in the 10th round. Young was fresh off a century (105) against the Wellington Firebirds on Friday here at this same ground in the eliminator that the Stags won by a colossal margin.
Surely bodies were tired, but the will to win was evidently not fading. The pair frustrated Canterbury as they piled on a milestone of their own: the new Stags second wicket partnership record of 257, beating Ben Smith and Worker’s 145 in Nelson in 2019.
Young was on the way to his highest List A one-day score for any team (previously 136) and his sixth Ford Trophy hundred for the Stags.
The decisive difference in this hard-fought match was the impetus the Stags were able to generate when it came time to lift the run rate in the back end of the match.
They were 216/1 at the end of the 36th over, Michael Rae was conceding only singles, but when Matt Boyle came on for the next, Young and Heaphy decided it was time to ‘go’ and peeled 11 runs from it.
Then they took nine from Rae, nine from Sheat, 10 from Lachie Harper… Young hitting two of his four sixes for the day as the worn squiggled upwards. He would finish with 15 fours and four sixes all up.
It was the Young and Heaphy show for some 38 overs and it ended when Nicholls took a straightforward catch at square leg, at 276/2.
The youngster had struck his 105 off 123 balls while his senior partner would go on to 157 off 132.
Tom Bruce had rushed back from representing Scotland at the ICC T20 World Cup in India but lasted just eight balls before Rae got a wicket. By then, the scores were level and the Stags didn’t need three overs to get one last run for a six-wicket victory and their first title under captain Jayden Lennox.
It was also their first Ford Trophy title since 2023 when they had also beaten Canterbury in the Grand Final.
These two teams had been the only ones to hold the one-day trophy over the last four years, but for Canterbury it was now a double blow after also having missed out in the Super Smash Grand Final a few weeks earlier, to Northern Brave.
THE FORD TROPHY 2025/26 GRAND FINAL
Sunday, 22 February, Cello Basin Reserve
Q1 Canterbury lost to Q2 Central Stags by 6 wickets
