Matt Boyle scored his second Plunket Shield century | PHOTOSPORT

Fourth-day fightback wins tough encounter

Posted Friday, 21 November, 2025 in Domestic News

ROUND ONE | DAY FOUR

Friday 21 November 2025

Mainpower Oval, Rangiora
Scorecard

Points at end of match: Canterbury 17, Northern Districts 5

The other four teams had already packed up their kit bags and gone home as Canterbury and Northern Districts remained locked in a last-day arm wrestle in the longest battle of the Plunket Shield’s opening round.

By tea on the last day, on a baking-hot Rangiora afternoon, Canterbury finally held the advantage, needing just 94 further runs with five wickets in hand, and a partnership en train on a lovely day for batting.

Matt Boyle, batting at six, had just reached his century before the break and was now carrying on with a set Mitch Hay.

Boyle was on his way to a new career best, the second Cantabrian to ton up in this last innings after opener Chad Bowes’s 118 in four hours, reached earlier on the critical day.

Chad Bowes

Bowes and Boyle had put on 166 together for the fifth wicket to wrest back control of the match from Jeet Raval’s defending champs.

Raval had declared the ND second innings on the third day at 380/8, his 35-year-old first drop Bharat Popli reaching a century himself.

It was Popli's 10th and business as usual as he top-scored with 116 and reached 5,000 first-class runs in the process, after 69 in the first innings.

ND's top order had put in the hard graft, batting patiently to set themselves up with Henry Cooper batting 252 minutes for his 63 at the top, and Raval spending two hours on his 24.

Bharat Popli (age 35) reached 5000 first-class runs in this current #PlunketShield round. Averages over 40 and made 69 and 116 in this game. Joins the CD trio of Bruce, Hay & Cleaver as the only NZers to have scored 5000 runs at 40+ but never played test cricket.
— Francis Payne (@FPayne100) November 20, 2025

At the other end of the experience scale, young debutant keeper-batter Aryan Mann had helped ND get a wriggle on by blasting an unbeaten maiden 54* off 39 balls (four boundaries, two sixes) and that was off the back of allrounder Kristian Clarke’s 47.

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They helped set up the last day: their hosts would need to find 370 runs to win. But against Canterbury’s solid batting line-up, it just didn’t go to plan for ND.

Raval, using the footmarks that had served him so well last season, spun the ball back to clip Bowes’s bails at 217/5.

That represented a strong recovery from the hosts after having been 51/4 — thanks to ND seamer Josh Brown going on an early spree (including nightwatchman Michael Rae).

The tall combo of Bowes (with his 12th first-class ton) and Boyle (his second) simply hauled the pendulum back.

Matt Boyle

Both teams sported strong line-ups, Northern grateful to have the services of spinner Tim Pringle back after his season off with injury.

The respective first digs had been a relatively even contest, Canterbury captain Rhys Mariu winning the toss and sending in Northern, who put 237 on the tins in 77.5 overs. Canterbury answered with 248, a neglible first-innings lead of just 11 runs and both teams had banked five of the maximum eight first-innings bonus points.

As the last afternoon wore on and Raval shuffled through his spinners, including himself, Cooper and Pringle, ND urgently needed some magic.

None was forthcoming. Boyle patiently coasted on to his first score of 150*, and Hay was the dependable lieutenant.

Canterbury had produced a record of sorts by reaching 371/5 in Rangiora. It was their highest successful fourth innings total at their country ground, albeit still dwarfed by an unsuccessful runfest - their all-time fourth innings record of 483 in last season's 19-run loss to Wellington.

This time, they had been successful. A hot day's work resulted in a five-wicket win as the clock ticked almost to 5.30pm.

Boyle had batted 319 minutes for his unbeaten 156* and Hay walked in with 59* after their unbroken 154*-run partnership. Job done.

Both Boyle brothers (Jack with 156 for Otago on day one in Wellington) scored their first-class career bests in this opening round, setting up an intriguing sibling rivalry next week at University of Otago Oval.

Next week, Canterbury heads to Dunedin for a clash between two first-round winners, starting on Wednesday. Northern heads home to Mt Maunganui and will host the Aces while the Stags are at the Basin.

Plunket Shield points after Round One