Canterbury and Wellington played out a high-scoring thriller when the Ford Cup got underway on Thursday with Canterbury claiming a 19-run win at the Basin Reserve.
Wellington asked Canterbury to bat first and apart from the loss of three wickets in four balls to Mark Gillespie, Canterbury were largely untroubled to amass 306-8.
Gillespie removed George Worker (20), Peter Fulton (0) and Shanan Stewart (0) to rock the visitors but Tom Latham joined forces with Rob Nichol in a 104-run stand which wasn't broken until the first ball of the 31st overs.
Nichol departed for 55 from 89 balls. And then Latham took over en route to his highest score at this level of 130. It was only his ninth game and his highest score had been 78. His 50 came up off 63 balls while his 100 took only another 30 balls. He was eventually dismissed by Harry Boam to a catch taken by Gillespie with four balls of the innings remaining.
Reece Young 29, Henry Nicholls 24 and Matt Henry 25 not out kept the momentum going. Boam took 2-27 but from three overs while Gillespie bowled his 10 to end with 4-52.
Wellington also experienced some top-order frustrations as Ryan McCone and Andrew Ellis got among the wickets. But Stephen Murdoch and James Franklin buckled down and worked their way to 109 before Franklin fell for 36. However, he was replaced by Grant Elliott and another 82 runs were added.
Murdoch went on to score 122, his 50 scored from 57 balls and his 100 off 106 balls. His total innings lasted 128 balls.
Unfortunately, for Wellington, he was dismissed in the 44th over with only the tailenders to get Welington up. But they made a bold bid with Jeetan Patel scoring 24 before Mitchell Claydon finished off the innings with seven balls to spare.
McCone finished with 4-63 from nine overs while Claydon had 2-67 from 9.5 overs.
Auckland made no race of their game with Northern Districts, winning by eight wickets when polishing of their target of 100 runs in 16.5 overs.
ND decided to bat first at Colin Maiden Park after winning the toss but were 13-3 in the fourth over and never recovered. Daryl Mitchell easily top-scored with 38 while Graeme Aldridge was next highest scorer with 14 as ND were dismissed for 99 in the 31st overs.
Mitchell McClenaghan scythed through the top-order and finished with 5-30 from his seven overs. Kyle Mills had 1-14 from seven overs, Colin de Grandhomme took 1-7 from three.
Anaru Kitchen dominated the response hitting 55 not out from 45 balls.
The Otago-Central Districts game in Invercargill was abandoned after only eight overs. Otago decided to bowl first and had Central Districts 34-3 when rain forced the abandonment of play.
Neil Wagner took 2-18 from his four overs while Ian Butler had one for 12.