Cricket: Guptill's return provides boost for Auckland

Auckland's defence of their first-class title never got started before Christmas, but they have the opportunity to maintain a decent roll when they play Canterbury in the fifth round of the one-day championship in Christchurch today.

Having lost their opening-round clash with Northern Districts, Auckland have beaten Otago, Central Districts and Wellington in successive games.

Their lead is four points, and will increase with a win today.

They will have to do it without in-form seamer Daryl Tuffey, who is out of the match for family reasons. His excellent opening spell against Wellington helped set up a convincing 81-run win last Wednesday, with a bonus point thrown in.

However, Auckland do possess one of the leading new ball bowlers in the country at present in Michael Bates.

The strongly-built Bates took 16 wickets in the first half of the Plunket Shield and has taken nine at 14.88 in the one-day competition, equal top with Wellington's former Auckland left-armer Andy McKay.

Auckland are also getting good value from their overseas import, English batsman Ravi Bopara, who heads the one-day aggregates with 249 at 62.25 and has chipped in with five wickets.

Test batsman Martin Guptill returns for today's match, replacing his test opening partner from the first two internationals against Pakistan, Tim McIntosh.

Auckland have a solid top eight batting lineup, but will likely need to omit at least one to accommodate sufficient bowlers.

"Things are starting to fall into place so hopefully we can continue to build on that," Auckland coach Paul Strang said.

"We will definitely miss Daryl who has been bowling beautifully but we have a range of bowling options and several of our batsmen are overdue, so hopefully we can put it all together in Christchurch."

Northern Districts had hoped to have captain James Marshall fit again after damaging the small finger on his left hand for their home game against Wellington at Seddon Park.

However, Marshall failed a fitness test yesterday and sits the match out. The only change for ND is Bradley Scott in for promising left-armer Trent Boult, but fast-medium bowling has been one of ND's strengths this summer and Scott is no slouch.

In the other match of the round, Otago host Central Districts at Alexandra, and welcome back ODI offspinner Nathan McCullum after an injury layoff.

CD will be buoyed by their Graham Napier-inspired win over ND at Palmerston North last Wednesday.

ND will have fancied 300 as a defendable total at Fitzherbert Park, but English professional Napier flogged 73 not out off just 27 balls to get CD home with 15 balls to spare.

Points after four rounds, with Otago and Canterbury having one game in hand: Auckland 13, Canterbury 9, CD and ND 8, Otago and Wellington 4.

* National one-day championship

Fifth round, all start 11am today

Canterbury v Auckland, Christchurch

Canterbury: (from) Kruger van Wyk (c), Michael Papps, Rob Nicol, Peter Fulton, Shanan Stewart, Johan Myburgh, Chris Harris, Craig McMillan, Carl Frauenstein, Andrew Ellis, Ryan Burson, Chris Martin

Auckland: (from) Gareth Hopkins (c), Martin Guptill, Lou Vincent, Richard Jones, Ravi Bopara, Reece Young, Scott Styris, Andrew de Boorder, Ronnie Hira, Greg Morgan, Michael Bates, Bhupinder Singh, Richard Sherlock

Otago v Central Districts, Alexandra

Otago: (from) Craig Cumming (c), Shaun Haig, Hamish Rutherford, Darren Broom, Neil Broom, Derek de Boorder, Nathan McCullum, Warren McSkimming, Ian Butler, Mat Harvie, Yasir Arafat, Anthony Bullick, Neil Wagner.

CD: (possible) Jamie How, George Worker, Peter Ingram, Mathew Sinclair, Graeme Napier, Tim Weston, Jacob Oram, Bevan Griggs, Kieran Noema-Barnett, Michael Mason, Ewen Thompson.

Northern Districts v Wellington, Hamilton

ND: (from) Peter McGlashan (c), BJ Watling, Anton Devcich, Daniel Flynn, Michael Parlane, Kane Williamson, Joey Yovich, Tim Southee, Bradley Scott, Brent Arnel, Bruce Martin, Graeme Aldridge.

Wellington: (from) Matthew Bell (c), Cam Merchant, BJ Crook, James Franklin, Chris Nevin, Stewart Rhodes, Luke Woodcock, Dewayne Bowden, Jeetan Patel, Robbie Schaw, Andy McKay, Maleasaili Tugaga.