STATISTICS: A summary of the statistics and milestones following the first round of Plunket Shield.
Henry Nicholls (Canterbury Wizards), Steve Smidt (Central Stags) and Scott Kuggeleijn (Wellington Firebirds) made their First-Class debuts. Kuggeleijn is the son of Chris Kuggeleijn the former BLACKCAP. All played club cricket in Europe during the winter, Nicholls was Canterbury's Durham exchange player, Smidt played in Scotland and Kuggeleijn in Holland, where he also represented Netherlands A and was named in the Dutch winter training squad.
Steven Finn, the English Test player made his debut for the Otago Voltswhile four players were also playing for new provinces this season. Michael Papps made his Wellington debut having moved from Canterbury with his spot in the Canterbury team being taken by George Worker from Central . Corey Anderson was another former Canterbury player to move, going to the Northern Knights. Auckland became Neal Parlane's third province after Northern and Wellington while Greg Todd returned to Central after several years with Otago and last season with Auckland.
Auckland's 19 run win is their second closest margin of victory over the Northern Knights when batting first. When they last played Auckland won by 18 runs at Hamilton. Strangely their closest winning margin by runs is 8 runs back in 1963-64 when Auckland, batting second, were made to follow on but recovered to win narrowly.
Gareth Hopkins equalled Reece Young's Auckland record of 6 wicketkeeping dismissals in an innings during the Northern Knights first innings in Whangarei. Young had previously taken 6 catches against Wellington during the 2002-03 season. In the process Hopkins also passed the record for Auckland against Northern of 5 catches jointly held by Ian Smith and Paul Kelly. He also set a new record versus Northern of 7 dismissals in a match when he held another catch in the second innings.
The match figures of 11-123 by Andre Adams are the second best for Auckland versus the Northern Knights, bettered only by Johnny Hayes when he took 11-71 way back in the second match between the two associations in 1957-58. Adam's also took 10 wickets in his last match against Northern back in the 2007-08 season so has taken 5 or more wickets in his last 3 innings against them, having figures of 4-30 and 6-28 in his previous match. He joins John Sparling as the second highest wicket-taker for Auckland with 248 wickets, but well behind Hedley Howarth with 332.
Wellington's total of 536-6 declared is their second highest against the Central Stags and 10th highest in all matches. They scored 590-8 dec at Palmerston North in 2004-05 while the highest ever Wellington total is 614-8 against Canterbury at QEII Park in 2006-07 when Wellington passed Canterbury's 1st innings of 613-7 dec with 5 minutes of scheduled time remaining on the last day.
Mathew Sinclair became the first Central Stags player to reach 100 matches for the Association. Others to have achieved 100 matches for one Association are:
120 - EJ Gray (W)
119 - RH Vance (W)
115 - GE Bradburn (ND)
108 - WK Lees (O)
107 - JAH Marshall (ND)
106 - CJ Nevin (W)
104 - ADG Roberts (ND)
103 - PE McEwan (C)
102 - EB McSweeney (W)
101 - RT Latham (C)
101 - JAF Yovich (ND)
Mathew Sinclair also became just the second player, after Michael Papps for Canterbury, to score 1,000 runs for one association against all the other five when he reached 15 in the second innings against Wellington.
Peter Ingram also passed the 1,000 run milestone for the Central Stags in matches against the Wellington Firebirds while Jamie How's innings of 187 not out is his highest for Central in First-Class cricket.
Stephen Murdoch made it back-to-back centuries for the Wellington Firebirds against the Central Stags when he scored 103 in the first innings at Napier. He had scored 141 in his only innings in the previous match at the Basin reserve last season.
James Franklin did likewise and went even better with his innings of 162 following innings of 76 and 107* in Napier back in the 2008-09 season, the last time Franklin played against the Central Stags. James Franklin has only played occasionally for Wellington over the last 6 years, in fact this was just his 10th match since February 2006, but in those 10 matches he has scored 1,353 runs at an average of 112.75 with 6 centuries and 4 half-centuries in 13 innings.
When Peter Ingram and Jamie How added 136 for Central Districts first wicket in the first innings it was the 8th century partnership by the pair. They join Martin Crowe and Mark Greatbatch in having scored the most century partnerships for Central . They also join David White and Graeme Hick (Northern Knights) and Michael Papps and Peter Fulton (Canterbury Wizards) in having scored 8 century partnerships together with only the Wellington pair of Bruce Edgar and Robert Vance scoring more, having shared in 10 century partnerships.
The 198 added by James Franklin and Luke Woodcock for Wellington's 6th wicket is the 3rd highest for this wicket for Wellington. The two highest partnerships were also against the Central Stags, 226 by Evan Gray and Ross Ormiston in 1981-82 and 203 by Ormiston and Jeremy Coney the following season.
Ben Smith has played just two matches for the Central Stags, both against Wellington, but in those two matches he has shared in 2nd wicket partnerships of 204 and 166 with Peter Ingram last season and started this season with another 2nd wicket century partnership, this time of 150 with Jamie How.
When Canterbury were dismissed for 61 in their second innings this was 359 runs less than they scored in their first innings. There have only been two occasions where teams have had a worse difference between their first and second innings in New Zealand First-Class cricket. In 1924-25 Wellington scored 443 against Auckland only to be dismissed for 75 second time in, a difference of 368 runs. Five seasons earlier Auckland were dismissed in their first innings for 522 but Wellington dismissed them for 159 runs in their second innings, a decrease of 363 runs. There have been four other occasions where teams have been dismissed in their second innings for more than 300 runs less than their first innings, the most recent being just two seasons ago when Wellington scored 477 and 122 against Auckland.
James McMillan captured his 100th wicket for Otago in Canterbury's first innings and Todd Astle did likewise for Canterbury in Otago's second innings while Rob Nicol brought up 1,000 runs for Canterbury during his first innings century.
