How stars in Central Districts victory

Central Districts 291 and 181 for 3 (How 108*) beat Otago 193 and 278 by 7 wickets
Scorecard

Central Districts joined Auckland with maximum points after the first round of the State Championship when they completed a seven-wicket win over Otago at the Queenstown Events Centre.

Starting at 61 for 1, CD were guided to their success by Jamie How, their opener. He scored his second century of the match and left the field to learn that a continuation of the sort of form he has shown could find him in the running for Mark Richardson's opening spot in the New Zealand team. It is only the second time that a CD player has scored a century in each innings - the only other batsman was Martin Crowe in the summer of 1986-87.

CD lost Geoff Barnett for 36 when the total was on 95, and there was a slight wobble when Glen Sulzberger was out at 104. But Jarrod Englefield backed How up perfectly and was 22 not out when victory was achieved. How batted for 198 minutes during his innings and Otago sensibly decided to let their faster bowlers fight another day by having their spinners Aaron Redmond and Nathan McCullum bowl most of the overs during the day. Redmond took 1 for 66 and McCullum 1 for 47.

Wellington 384 and 153 for 7 (Parlane 50*) drew withCanterbury 298
Scorecard

What had been shaping up as a close contest at Hagley Oval petered out into a draw when heavy rain stopped play with Wellington enjoying a 249-run lead. That it had recovered from its perilous position of 84 for 6 was thanks largely to a fine defensive hand of 50 not out played over 237 minutes and 150 balls by Neal Parlane.

He defied the best intentions of the Canterbury bowlers, of whom Chris Martin had early morning success when he claimed the wicket of Graham Murray. But with Parlane enjoying good support from Mark Gillespie, who batted for just over an hour to be 37 not out at close, the job was looking much tougher for Canterbury.

Martin maintained the touch he showed in the first innings and ended with m,atch figures of 8 for 97. The match was abandoned at 3.40pm.