Canterbury in 13-8 ‘lead’

Press, 15 February 1989, Page 35

Canterbury in 13-8 ‘lead’

Northern Districts is the youngest of the six major cricket associations in New Zealand, having been promoted to the then Plunket. Shield competition in 1956-57.

Since then it has met Canterbury on 37 occasions. Canterbury has a 13-8 winning advantage, the other 16 games having been drawn.

John Parker, a former New Zealand test batsman, holds the individual scoring record for matches between the two districts. His 195 at Whangarei in 1972-73 was a Northern all-time record, since exceeded by Graeme Hick and David White.

The highest score for Canterbury was Vaughan Brown’s unbeaten 161 at Gisborne in 1972-73.

A match at Hamilton in 1960-61 created bowling “bests” for both associations. John Kiddey took seven for 24 for Canterbury and Gren Alabaster replied with seven for 59. Alabaster’s record was equalled by Murray Child in Christchurch two years ago. The most impressive match analysis, 12 for 81, was registered by Richard Hadlee in the same game that Child had so much success. Northern’s record is 10 for 110 by Richard Collinge, also at Lancaster Park, in 197576.

Only two double-cen-tury partnerships have been achieved in Canter-bury-Northern encounters. Bruce Bolton and Graham Dowling accumulated 214 runs for Canterbury’s first wicket at Christchurch in 195960; that was bettered by Grant Gibson and Chris Kuggeleijn, with their 237 runs for the Northern second wicket at Hamilton in 1980-81. Brown was involved in several especially productive partnerships against Northern. He

holds the records for the third, fourth and fifth wickets — in order, 190 with Paul McEwan at Christchurch in 1985-86, 181 with Rod Latham in Gisborne in 1986-87, and 147 with McEwan at Rotorua in 1984-85.