Cricket: Northern Districts dominate in two matches

The Northern Districts A side beat Central Districts A at Owen Delaney Park.

The Northern Districts A side made it two-from-two against Central Districts A at Owen Delaney Park in Taupo.

Beating CDA by 158 runs in the first of two Provincial A Nearest Neighbour matches, Monday, the Northern side backed this up with a comprehensive six-wicket win in the second match against CDA yesterday. Featuring prominently in the two victories, Northland's Ben Hyde, Henry Cooper and Rory Christopherson played their parts in keeping the scoreboard looking healthy on both days.

Scoring just nine runs in ND's first match, Hyde fared better in the second match where he powered to 41 runs off 50 balls as ND chased CD's first innings total of 150 off 38.5 overs. Cooper managed 18 runs not-out to bring up the win for ND.

Having a field day with the ball in the first innings, Cooper also helped restrict CD to a measly total of 150 runs by taking a handy 2-24.

Enjoying a comfortable 158-run victory over CDA on Monday, NDA's terrific win was heralded by Nick Kelly who scored a classy 161 off 129 balls.

Cooper was the pick of the Northland crop, scoring 26 not-out off 18 balls as NDA built a first innings total of 297/6 off 50 overs, while taking 1-17 as Northern District's bowling attack bowled CDA all-out for 139 in the second stanza.

NDA's wicketkeeper Christopherson took two catches in this match.

Also playing this week, the Northland Senior Secondary Schoolboys team has had mixed results at the Northern Districts Senior Boys tournament in Gisborne. Losing both their T20 games on the opening day against last year's finalists, Counties Manakau and Hamilton, Northland were on track for a better finish yesterday.Still in with a slim chance of making the semifinals, Northland needed to beat Bay of Plenty Lakelands by a large margin in yesterday's 50-over match to have any success in doing so. As this edition went to print, Northland had set Bay of Plenty a total of 159 runs to chase.