STATISTICS: A summary of the statistics and milestones following the first round of Plunket Shield.
Roald Badenhorst debuted for the Central Stags while Mitchell Santner and Anurag Verma made their debuts for the Northern Knights, Verma being a last day replacement for BJ Watling who left to join the BLACKCAPS in Australia.
Craig Cumming became the Otago record runscorer when he passed Bert Sutcliffe's tally of 6,028 runs for the Volts. The 30 runs he scored took his career tally for the Volts to 6,054.
Cumming was playing his 25th match against the Northern Knights, 20 of which have been for the Volts and five for the Wizards. Only Matthew Bell with 26 matches for the Knights and Wellington against Otago and Alec Downes with 28 for Otago against Canterbury have played more matches against one team.
Tim McIntosh scored his 15th century for Auckland and in the process became the 5th Auckland player to have scored 1,000 runs for the Aces against the Firebirds. He has previously reached the 1,000 run milestone for Auckland against Canterbury and Otago.
James Franklin took his career tally for Wellington beyond 3,000 runs when he scored 68 in the first innings against the Aces. Later Jeetan Patel claimed his fifth 5 wicket bag for the Firebirds and second against the Aces. This is his first 5 wicket bag for the Firebirds since March 2009, some 29 games ago.
James Franklin and Luke Woodcock combined for their second century partnership of the season and their fifth in all first-class matches when helping the Firebirds recover from 40 for 4 in their first innings.
Peter Fulton also passed 1,000 runs for Canterbury against the Central Stags. He has already scored 1,000 runs for the Wizards against Auckland and Otago.
In the same match Jamie How passed 4,000 runs for Central during the Stags first innings then passed 1,000 runs for the Stags against the Wizards in the second innings.
Peter Ingram and Mathew Sinclair went even better reaching the 1,500 run mark for the Stags against Canterbury. Ingram became just the 8th player to have reached this milestone while Sinclair became the first player to do so against three different teams. Michael Papps is the only other player to have performed this feat against more than one team.
Sinclair scored his 23rd first-class century for the Stags during their second innings. This moves him two centuries clear of his nearest challengers, Martin Crowe, Bert Sutcliffe and the only other current player, Craig Cumming who have all scored 21 centuries for their respective domestic teams.
As mentioned in the Round two stats Mathew Sinclair also went into this round of matches with 108 catches in the field for the Central Stags needing two catches to pass Evan Gray and so have most catches for any of the domestic associations. He managed one catch so now shares the record and will have to wait until next week when the Stags travel to Auckland to see if he can claim the record on his own.
The Wizards relatively inexperienced bowling attack has done a fine job in removing the oppositions top order so far this season but are having a mental block getting the 6th wicket each innings. In the first match the game was in the balance with Otago 208-5 in reply to 420 when Sam Wells and Derek de Boorder added an unbeaten 92 before the declaration. Against Auckland Martin Guptill and Colin de Grandhomme added a record 211 after the Aces were
precariously placed at 72-5 in reply to 491. Then in their latest match the Central Stags were struggling at 78-5 when batting first before Kruger van Wyk and Carl Cachopa added 110 to revive the innings.
