ROUND THREE • 2022/23
Pukekura Park, New Plymouth
4 December 2022
Central Stags beat Otago Volts by 123 runs
Bonus point win for Stags
Selected milestones
Ross Taylor: 5th Ford Trophy match for Central Stags
Will Young: 10th List A century (fifth for Central Stags)
Jacob Duffy: fifth List A five-wicket bag
Will Young's career-best century led the way for the Stags as they returned to Pukekura Park for the first time this season, in front of a good little crowd at their New Plymouth venue.
Sent in by Hamish Rutherford, the Stags didn't get a good start, Jacob Duffy quickly ripping out three of top four wickets to have the Stags 33/3, including Ross Taylor back in the hutch for a second consecutive duck.
Duffy would eventually have Young's wicket as well, but would have to wait for the rest of the innings to get it to seal a five-wicket bag (5-33), while Glenn Phillips pocketed three catches.
Young reached his century off just 99 balls and let rip against Michael Rippon towards the end, thumping him over Fillis Street and into the house across the road.
Crucially the Stags' captain had found support from another Taranaki local in Tom Bruce (34) and Josh Clarkson (42), and it enabled the Stags to reach a defendable 268, even though they were bowled out in the 45th over.
That will have been short of the Stags' intended tally, the hosts no doubt mindful of the threat looming in the Otago Volts' line-up, with Glenn and Dale Phillips both named in a Volts Ford Trophy side for the first time - following BLACKCAP Glenn's transfer from Auckland earlier this year.
The fabulous Phillips brothers | MBUTCHER
And, young power-hitter Llew Johnson was coming off his big maiden 50 in the last match.
The combination of the explosive hitters with Pukekura Park's short square boundaries promised some fireworks.
However, the Stags' experienced opening attack of Seth Rance (3-29) and Doug Bracewell (3-38) took five wickets between them in their first spell, before first-change Ray Toole - the young left-armer coming in for his first game of the one-day campaign - got the big wicket of Glenn Phillips, after a 23-ball 34 that had already seen two sixes smashed out of the ground.
It was a big blow to the Volts, and Max Chu's fighting 27 proved the only other score of note as they imploded to be 133 all out in the 26th over, suffering their second big loss to the Stags in the space of three games.
