CD upset the odds with convincing win

Central Districts 354 for 5 (Taylor 95, How 92, Spearman 85) beat Canterbury 255 (Cairns 35) by 99 runs
Scorecard

Central Districts pulled off a major surprise by beating Canterbury by 99 runs in the State Shield final at Christchurch. The less-favoured CD side were asked to bat first, and that proved the biggest mistake Canterbury made on a day full of mistakes.

As Michael Sharpe, the Canterbury coach, said afterwards when surveying the ruins of his side's performance, his bowlers could not have performed any worse. Nor could they have met a more positive response from the rampant CD top-order batsmen, who ran up the second-highest score in a domestic one-day match in New Zealand. They raced to a daunting 354 for 5 - certainly the highest score in a competition final.

They benefited from Craig Spearman's best innings of the summer, a 48-ball 85, which included five sixes and 10 fours. Spearman and Jamie How, who went on to score 92 off 113 balls, put on a CD record of 155 for the first wicket. With that sort of start, the outstanding prospect of Ross Taylor feasted on the wayward bowling to score 95 off 86 balls. That made him the highest scorer in the State League this year, and the only player to score 500 runs. He finished with 511, scored at an average of 73, a testimony to the form he has shown against all attacks in all conditions.

Mathew Sinclair ensured the pressure was unending for Canterbury by scoring 41 not out off 35 balls at the end of the innings. Of the Canterbury bowlers, only Chris Harris with 0 for 47 off his 10 overs could feel any comfort.

Canterbury promoted Brendon McCullum to open the innings to try and boost the scoring rate from the outset, but when Michael Papps and Shanan Stewart were back in the pavilion within the first three overs, the job had become improbable for Canterbury.

That was made all more certain when McCullum departed for 34 off 18 balls, a victim of the collywobbles when attempting to hook Jacob Oram in his first over. Gary Stead followed in the 12th over and Canterbury had slumped to 62 for 4.

Craig McMillan tried to improvise, but that proved his undoing as he was caught at backward square-leg on the edge attempting a reverse sweep when he had scored 19 off 14 balls.

Peter Fulton tried to keep one end going, and he and Chris Cairns added 57 runs, with Cairns just starting to build for the sort of innings that had CD worried. However, he pulled a ball from Andrew Schwass to the diving Oram at mid-on for 35. When Fulton went for 59 the next ball, the end was nigh.

Chris Harris and Paul Wiseman indulged in some lower-order parry and thrust to add 91 runs, but CD were secure and with Oram taking 3 for 45, the admirably accurate Michael Mason 2 for 37, and Schwass 2 for 42. It was Oram, however, who held the State Shield aloft when Canterbury were out in the 43rd over.