Twelve big matches remain in NZC’s Domestic season - the business end of the tight Plunket Shield national first-class championship beginning this Saturday in Christchurch, Napier and Auckland.
Saturday sees the start of round five of the eight-round competition as players recalibrate from the white-ball mode of the past two months to red-ball battles over four days at a time.
While the championship is halfway done, the outcome is anything but certain, a tight table putting current leader the Auckland Aces’ position under threat.
Canterbury is just one point behind them, the red-and-black machine staying well oiled on the way to two national finals this season in their T20 Super Smash and one-day Ford Trophy campaigns.
Watching their opponents (Northern Brave and the Central Stags, respectively) lift those trophies will lead to no shortage of hunger form the strong Canterbury squad to make the Plunket Shield count.
With departing head coach Peter Fulton off to a new chapter with Middlesex, assistant Brendon Donkers steps us as interim head coach as they get ready to play Otago at Hagley Oval.
Otago is fifth on the ladder yet just nine points off the lead themselves, a maximum of 20 points available to each team per round, and the Wellington Firebirds the only team yet to get an outright win this season.
Points at a glance (number of wins)
49 Auckland Aces (2)
48 Canterbury (2)
47 Northern Districts (2)
40 Central Stags (2)
40 Otago (1)
18 Wellington Firebirds (0)
Teams can accrue up to eight bonus points per match regardless of whether they win, lose, tie or draw, but a coveted outright win is worth an additional 12 points.
The 100th season of the Plunket Shield competition will conclude on 30 March with the winner being the team with the most points at the end of the eight rounds or, in the event of equal points, the most wins.
If teams are still equal, the next separator is higher net average per wicket.
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The Auckland Aces host northern neighbours Northern Districts at Eden Park’s Kennards Hire Community Oval from this Saturday while at McLean Park, the Stags have a rematch with the Wellington Firebirds who will be looking to avenge their Ford Trophy Elimination Final loss to the eventual one-day champions.
Weather may be a factor with a cold front moving in, and the Stags will remain in Napier for round six which will begin two days earlier than originally scheduled, their clash against Northern Districts starting on Saturday, 7 March.
The other two sixth-round matches begin on Monday, 9 March in Auckland and Wellington, as per the original schedule.
Two of the top three Plunket Shield run-scorers, Canterbury’s Henry Nicholls and Central’s Brad Schmulian, are coming off solid Ford Trophy campaigns in which they also finished in the top three run-scorers nationally (as did Tom Latham).
Machining out the tons, Nicholls broke Canterbury’s record for most one-day centuries in a season (four) and that sits alongside three first-class Plunket Shield hundreds so far, more than any other batter in the first-class arena this season.
Stags opener Curtis Heaphy has scored two centuries in both competitions, while Northern veteran Henry Cooper is the overall leading Plunket Shield batter of 2025/26 to date with 509 runs including an unbeaten 206* against the Aces at the Mount in November.
Nicholls’s knock of 226 against the Aces at Hagley in December is the only higher individual contribution; Schmulian meanwhile has an unbeaten 167* against the Firebirds already this summer and will be looking forward to a rematch with them this weekend.
With the ball, spinner Rohit Gulati remains at the top of the wickets list in his first summer with the Aces: 22 wickets, including two bags.
Northern spinner Tim Pringle (19) has steadily gained ground on him however, while the top pace bowler is currently Otago’s Danru Ferns with 16 victims from the first half of the comp — helping Otago keeper Max Chu rocket to 21 dismissals.
If Chu can keep up that pace, he may threaten Derek de Boorder’s Otago record of 44 in a season, from 2012/13 when the competition was contested over 10 rounds instead of eight.
Round five of the championship begins at 10.30am this Saturday with livescores at www.nzc.nz and on the NZC app, and free livestreams at NZC YouTube.
Admission to all matches, every round is free.
