Otago break horror historical run with powerful win at Alexandra

With rain sweeping the ground at Molyneux Park, Alexandra early this morning a huge doubt existed as to whether the Shell Cup game between State Otago Volts and Canterbury would see a completion.

Play started almost an hour late and the game was reduced to a 47 over contest with Otago winning the toss and putting Canterbury into bat.

The Red and Blacks started slowly and were initially on the back foot until Chris Cairns and Gareth Hopkins came together in a partnership of 65 for the fifth wicket. Cairns innings was a mixture of some aggression but mainly some calculated twos and singles. He scored 44 from 50 balls with three four's and one six.

Hopkins got 60 (from 68 balls with five fours and one six) in a similar type of innings to Cairns). At the end of the Canterbury innings Warren Wisneski and Shane Bond put on 37 for the ninth wicket and this took Canterbury through to 224-8 from their 47 overs.

Bowling for Otago, Craig Cumming with 2-34 from his 10 overs and Kerry Walmsley (1-33 from 10) were the pick of the Otago Volts attack.

Otago started off at break neck speed with Andrew Hore and Craig Cumming putting on 47 for the first wicket in six overs. Hore was joined by Chris Gaffany who played a match winning innings for 79 not out (from 88 balls with six fours and one six). When Hore was out for 24 and the score at 50-2. Lee Germon and Brendon McCullum failed to keep the momentum going being out in quick succession but Martyn Croy with 25 and Craig Pryor 58 not out together with Gaffaney carried Otago through to a five wicket victory with almost twelve overs to spare.

For Canterbury Mark Hastings, with 2-32 from 7 overs, was their only bowler to make any real inroads into the Otago batting.

And so Otago who had experienced 13 straight loses to Canterbury in Shell Cup cricket came right at their fourteenth attempt with a deserved win. True, Canterbury had bowled for a short period with a moist ball but Chris Gaffaney and Craig Pryor had batted so well that their team could not be denied victory.