Batting quality provides memorable match in Timaru

Runs, high-scoring, batting of quality - it hasn't really been a feature of New Zealand's summer, but Canterbury and Northern Districts produced them all in a last-over State Shield thriller at Timaru's Aorangi Oval today.

Who better to rely on when the going got tough in the last few overs than the most experienced man in the game here, Chris Harris.

He scored an unbeaten 83 off 89 balls, including two sixes and six fours to help his side to a two-wicket win with four balls left.

Making the win all the more satisfying was the fact he was accompanied at the crease by the injured Michael Papps, who had his nose broken earlier in the innings, who came out to bat when the eighth wicket fell.

But if Canterbury called on batting of special quality from Harris, Chris Cairns and Gary Stead, so too, did Northern Districts through their century maker Michael Parlane and his partner in a 145-run third wicket stand with Scott Styris.

In the end, however, Canterbury had more guns than Northern Districts could fire on the day, but a good-sized crowd in desperately hot, windy conditions of around 30 degrees were not about to complain.

Styris scored 70, while Stead and Harris added 118 for Canterbury for the fourth wicket.

Parlane's innings was outstanding. A player who enjoys giving the ball a nudge when he can, he waited his opportunity and when it came he capitalised in style. His 122 off 142 balls was the highest of his three domestic one-day centuries. He hit seven fours and five sixes and batted for all but nine balls of the innings.

It is not possible to ask more of an opening batsman than that. The effects of the heat of the day saw him cramping up at the end of but it was a class effort.

At times there must have been a temptation to wind the scoring rate up, but he and Styris showed great composure during their 145-run stand for the third wicket. They faced 171 balls and the end came when Styris just seemed to lose his concentration for a second when facing Harris.

Harris was the tightest of the Canterbury bowlers and conceded little despite the conditions. With only 33 runs off his 10 overs, he had the reward of Styis' wicket, caught nicely by Stead at extra cover for 70 off 76 balls.

Cairns gave some stunning impetus to Canterbury's chase, especially after they had lost Shanan Stewart and Craig McMillan for eight and a duck respectively, and then Papps who was retired hurt when a ball from Ian Butler got through the grill of his helmet and into the side of the face. He was taken from the ground for a medical check which revealed he had broken his nose. He was kept in the hospital for observation.

But Cairns was non-plussed and took 16 runs, courtesy of four fours, from the remainder of the over. Then 29 runs came from Butler's next over, 28 of them from Cairns' bat. He hit two sixes and four fours. Along the way he broke the record for the fastest one-day half-century in New Zealand off 20 balls, beating Glamorgan professional Matthew Maynard's 22 scored for Otago against Auckland at Alexandra in 1997/98.

His hitting, and the quality of it, including a sweetly-timed pull shot from Butler which flew for a lovely six over backward square leg, was most reassuring as New Zealand looks to the World Cup.

Butler was batted into submission, his seven overs costing 71 runs.

Stead, while not batting with the freedom of Cairns, or Harris, scored 50 off 85 balls, including five fours, and has achieved 2000 runs in domestic one-day cricket. It was Stead's ninth half-century.

Harris scored his 50 off 51 balls with five fours and one six. It was his 14th half century.

An interesting feature of the match, especially given the dreadfully windy conditions which marred most of the day, was the fact that Canterbury's bowlers did not concede a wide or a no-ball in their innings, and it was the first ball of the 31st Northern Districts over before a wide was committed, at Daryl Tuffey's expense.

Stead was finally out for 66 off 111 balls when hitting a cross-batted shot to long on where Joseph Yovich held the catch to leave Canterbury 212 for four wickets in the 40th over.

And while four more wickets fell, largely to some tidy work in a pressure situation by Graeme Aldridge, who took two for 32 from eight overs, and Mark Orchard with two for 25 from his six, Harris was the constant factor at the crease and his experience told in the end.