STATISTICS: Milestones and statistics from round five of the round five HRV Cup Twenty20 competition.
Martin Guptill's record HRV Cup score highlighted the fifth round of the HRV Cup. His unbeaten 120 is the highest score made in a New Zealand Twenty20 match, beating the 116* made by Brendon McCullum for the BLACKCAPS against Australia two seasons ago and the highest score in the HRV Cup, 111* by Ross Taylor for the Central Stags against the Northern Knights at Hamilton in 2007-08.
The eight sixes Guptill hit equals the most in a match, a record shared by McCullum and Taylor during their knocks mentioned above. Two of the sixes went well over the pavilion while a third flat pulled six was expertly caught on the pavilion balcony by the Sky TV commentator and former BLACKCAP, Craig McMillan.
Such was Guptill's domination that he reached his century in 50 balls, equalling Brendon McCullum's effort against the Australians and one ball quicker than the fastest domestic hundred by Chris Harris for the Canterbury Wizards against the Auckland Aces. Guptill faced 10 dot balls during his innings. He had scored 27 off 21 balls before a sequence of 32 balls where he scored off every ball in the process taking his score to 103.
He also scored 63.49% of the Auckland total in the match bettering Brendon McCullum who scored 63.15% of the Otago Volts runs when he scored 108* in their total of 171 at Dunedin in 2009-10. Ross Taylor had previously scored 60.00% of the Central Stags runs when scoring his 111* in 2007-08.
The Aces total of 189 is not the lowest to include a century. The Wellington Firebirds total of 170 for 3 at Queenstown earlier this season which included Brendan Taylor's century is the lowest total to include a century. There are three other totals lower than Auckland's 189 which also include a century.
This is now the sixth occasion that a chasing team has won off the last ball. It is also the third time that the winning hit was a six although on this occasion just one run was needed for the win.
This result continues the run of close results between these two teams. They have now both been involved in a win off the last ball and also had a tied match. The Aces also won one match by one run while the Wizards won another match with just one ball to spare.
Peter Fulton maintained his 100% record at the toss in the Wizards' home matches this season. He has won all three tosses in the Plunket Shield matches at Rangiora as well as the Ford Trophy matches at Timaru and Rangiora. Now he has made it two successful tosses in Rangiora and one in Timaru in the HRV Cup. In all matches this season he has now won ten out of twelve tosses.
During the match between the Otago Volts and Central Stags Michael Mason became the first bowler to reach the fifty wickets milestone. He now has 51 wickets and is comfortably ahead of the next best, Bradley Scott, who has taken 39 wickets for the Otago Volts and Northern Knights.
The Central Stags looked to be heading for a big win before Neil Wagner and Nick Beard added a Volts record 32 for the ninth wicket to restrict the Stags to a 28 run win. Both batsmen recorded personal bests in the process.
Once again the weather came into play during this round with the match between the Northern Knights and Wellington Firebirds decided by the Duckworth-Lewis method. This was just the second Twenty20 match where there was an interruption in play before the match was eventually resumed with the team batting second set a revised total to chase. All other matches decided by Duckworth-Lewis have seen the team batting first complete their twenty over innings before the innings of the team batting second was curtailed part way through with Duckworth-Lewis then used to decide the winner. In the match at Mt Maunganui the Northern Knights innings was interrupted at 77 for 4 after 10.5 overs and was then completed at 82 for 4 off 11.3 overs. The Firebirds were then set a target of 90 in 11 overs to win the match.
