Crushing wins for Otago and Central Districts

Auckland 150 for 3 (Jones 47*, Elliott 2-25) beat Wellington 149 for 6 (S Mills 53*, K Mills 2-20) by seven wickets
Scorecard

Auckland eased home against Wellington at Eden Park in the first round of the Twenty20 league, reaching their target of 149 with nine balls remaining.

Scott Styris and Kyle Mills made encouraging comebacks from injury, both grabbing two wickets to have Wellington wobbling on 88 for 6. Stu Mills (53) and Luke Woodcock added 60 runs for the sixth wicket boosted their side to 148 late on - Woodcock blasting two sixes and a four in his 25-ball 36 - but it wasn't enough.

Auckland's openers Lou Vincent and Paul Hitchcock put on 87 before Hitchcock was caught by Grant Elliott off Kevin Forde for 36 in the ninth over. Vincent then added another 50 with Auckland captain Richard Jones who remained unbeaten on 47 off 29 balls as they coasted home.

Otago 185 for 8 (Broom 33, Aldridge 2-25) beat Northern Districts 85 (McCullum 4-16, McMillan 3-15) by 100 runs
Scorecard

James McMillan and Nathan McCullum took seven wickets between them to bowl out Northern Districts for 85 inside 15 overs as Otago won by 100 runs in Dunedin.

Otago batted first and made 185 with useful thirties from Neil Broom, Keiran Noema-Barnett and Greg Todd. ND began well, reaching 25 in two overs, but then lost their next three wickets to the medium pace of McMillan for 19 runs. A brief revival - 23 runs added in the next three overs - was quashed when the offspinner McCullum stepped in and took three wickets in one over, dismissing Anton Devcich, Ian Butler, and Joseph Yovich.

Central Districts 180 for 9 (Oram 57, Harris 2-15) beat Canterbury 104 (Thompson 4-12, Schaw 3-21) by 76 runs
Scorecard

Jacob Oram shrugged off injury to crack a 28-ball 57 in Central's 76-run win against Canterbury. He added 75 runs with opener Geoff Barnett before being bowled by Carl Frauenstein's medium pace.

Ewen Thompson and Robbie Schaw then finished off the Canterbury top order inside 11 overs. Thompson knocked over the top four - including Michael Papps and Chris Harris - to set Canterbury reeling on 38 for 4. Schaw got the next two and cleaned up the tail along with Brendon Diamanti who got 2 for 8.