STATISTICS: A summary of the statistics and milestones following the first round of Ford Trophy cricket.
The match at Rangiora featured 5 players who were making their List A debut while three others were making their List A debut for either Canterbury or Central Stags. Joel Abraham, Henry Nicholls, Col McConchie and Matt Henry for the Wizards and Ben Smith for the Stags were all playing their first List A match while George Worker was making his List A debut for the Wizards against his former team. Carl Cachopa was playing his first List A match for the Stags having previously played for the Aces while Peter Borren was playing his first List A match in his country of birth after having played 81 times for the Netherlands. Borren was making his New Zealand debut at his old stomping ground in Rangiora where he he used to play for the Canterbury Country team.
Henry Nicholls score of 74* is the third highest by a player on debut for the Wizards after 87 by Graham Dowling and 83* by Brad Doody while Tim McIntosh also scored 74 on his Canterbury debut. The Wizards coach, Bob Carter scored 66 on his Wizards debut while George Worker, with his innings of 50, is the only other player to have scored a half-century his first Canterbury match.
Matt Henry's bowling figures of 4-25 are also the third best on debut for the Wizards but the best on debut the against the Stags. Only Leighton Burtt with 5-26 and Stu Roberts, 4-13, have better figures in their first match. Shane Bond is one of only three others to have taken four wickets on his Wizards debut.
Ben Smith is the 13th player to have scored a half-century or better on debut for the Stags, with Martin Crowe and Llorne Howell going on to record centuries.
There was quite a difference in ages between the Stags opening bowlers with Michael Mason at 37 years and 90 days being 17 years and 229 days older than Adam Milne.
Mathew Sinclair took his List A tally against Canterbury to 1,224 runs improving his average slightly to 55.63. He has now scored one century and 12 half-centuries in his 28 innings against the Wizards. James Marshall for the Knights against the Wizards and Chris Harris for the Wizards against the Knights are the only others to have scored over 1,000 List A runs for one team against another but both trail Sinclair's aggregate.
Jimmy Baker was making his List A debut at University Oval in Dunedin. Jimmy Neesham was playing his first List A match for the Volts having previously represented the Aces while Corey Anderson was making his List A debut for the Knights after playing previously for the Wizards.
Otago's total of 295 is their highest against the Knights and their equal 6th highest in all matches. However they were well short of their record score of 371 which was made in a losing cause against Canterbury two seasons back.
The 111 run winning margin is the largest for the Volts against the Knights narrowly beating the 107 run win in Oamaru way back in the 1983-84 season.
Craig Cumming has an interesting record for the Volts against the Knights. He has now scored 600 runs against them in 18 innings with 3 centuries included. But in no other innings has he gone beyond 43. He has scored only one other
List A century for the Volts.
Cumming went on to record his highest one day score and together with Nathan McCullum posted a Volts record 5th wicket partnership of 143 bettering the previous record of 130, also registered against the Knights, back in 2002-03 by Marcel McKenzie and Peter McGlashan, today playing for the opposition.
Ian Butler's figures of 5-33 are the best for the Volts against the Knights pushing Mathew Harvie back into second spot with his figures of 5-40 at University Oval in 2006-07.
However Bradley Scott will be relieved that his figures of 10-0-71-0 narrowly failed to surpass the figures 10-0-72-1 recorded by Graeme Aldridge in that same match at University Oval in 2006-07 which will remain as the most expensive for the Knights against the Volts.
The match between Wellington and Auckland was the first domestic List A match to be played on Bert Sutcliffe Oval. There have been five List A matches on this ground previously but they all involved either the New Zealand Academy or New Zealand A teams.
Brad Cachopa for the Aces and Scott Kuggeleijn for the Firebirds were both making their List A debuts while Michael Papps was playing his first List A match for the Firebirds after having played 92 matches for the Wizards. His innings of 71 is the highest by any player on their Wellington debut passing the 70 scored by Martin Speight in 1992-93. Ian Billcliff is the only other player to have recorded a half-century on debut for the Firebirds.
Andre Adams became the first Auckland player to record a five wicket bag for the Aces against the Firebirds. His figures of 5-29 came in the 56th meeting between these two teams.
This was the Aces fifth consecutive win in matches between these two teams, their longest winning sequence, but the overall record still favours the Firebirds 34 wins to 20 with 2 no results.
