Fletcher to the fore again as Firebirds win
Wellington were the only team batting first to win yesterday as they claimed a 23-run victory in the Ford Trophy over Canterbury at Hagley Oval.
Wellington got off to a great start with 82 runs on the board before Michael Pollard was clean bowled by Will Williams for 31.
Devon Conway was the next batsman to fall for Wellington, with the score at 134-2 after 26.4 overs.
With almost half of their allotted overs to go, Wellington should have gone on to post a monster score, but tight bowling by Canterbury pegged down the Firebirds batsmen.
In the end, Wellington reached 256-7 from their 50 overs, with Andrew Fletcher top scoring on 76 and Malcolm Nofal not out on 51.
Captain Cole McConchie was the pick of the Canterbury bowlers, with figures of 3-28 from 10 overs.
In reply, Chad Bowes was out for five runs and his fellow opener, Jack Boyle, made only 12 more.
Stephen Murdoch was resilient though in amassing 83 runs from 98 balls, before he was out lbw to Ollie Newton.
Leo Carter, 32, and Cam Fletcher, 42, both had decent knocks, but weren’t scoring quickly enough and, as wickets then began to tumble, Wellington’s target got out of reach.
Wellington 256-7 (Andrew Fletcher 76, Malcolm Nofal 51*; Cole McConchie 3-28) beat Canterbury 233 (Stephen Murdoch 83, Leo Carter 32, Cam Fletcher 42; Hamish Bennett 3-36, Ben Sears 3-42.
Auckland v CD
Auckland cruised to a comfortable win at Bert Sutcliffe Oval yesterday, beating Central Districts by four wickets, reaching the CD total of 226 with five overs to spare.
Having won the toss, CD chose to have a crack with the bat first and when Greg Hay headed back to the pavilion for a duck after facing 10 balls, that may have looked like a bad call.
With two notable exceptions, the rest of the CD batting lineup did only marginally better. Those exceptions being a 50 from captain Tom Bruce from 61 balls and a score of 111 by Josh Clarkson.
His wicket was eventually claimed by Mitchell McClenaghan, but by then Clarkson had at least made a game of it, even if the total of 226 all out from 47.5 overs wasn’t that daunting for the Auckland batsmen.
While no-one in the Auckland side got close to the type of innings that Clarkson had, enough of them chipped in for the victory.
Central Districts 226 (Tom Bruce 50, Josh Clarkson 111; Mitchell McClenaghan 3-54, Ben Lister 3-33, Matt McEwan 3-33) lost to Auckland 229-6 (Ben Horne 61, Graeme Beghin 56*; Ryan McCone 3-44, Dean Foxcroft 3-39).
Otago v ND
looked like a good decision as Brad Wilson was caught behind by Peter Bocock from a Brett Randell delivery off the very first ball.
But, after that bad start, Otago settled down with Mitch Renwick scoring 61 runs from 78 balls, finding the boundary rope on eight occasions.
As the innings went on, Michael Rippon and Nathan Smith both scored 71. Rippon though was unbeaten in his knock, racking up three fours and five sixes as he tore apart the Northern Districts bowling attack.
In the end, Otago reached an impressive, but ultimately not good enough, total of 291-6 from their 50 overs.
ND went on the attack right from the start of their innings, with captain Dean Brownlie scoring 110 from 115 balls, hitting 13 fours and a six.
He was ably backed up by the rest of the ND top order, with Bharat Popli and Nick Kelly both registering half-centuries.
The required total was reached with 14 balls to spare.
Otago 291-6 (Mitch Renwick 61, Nathan Smith 71, Michael Rippon 71*; Brett Randell 3-32) lost to Northern Districts 292-3 (Dean Brownlie 110, Bharat Popli 67, Nick Kelly 55).