Bennett bags 10 wickets as frontrunners fire up

Plunket Shield frontrunners Wellington have notched their fourth win of the domestic cricket competition — a maiden 10-wicket bag from Hamish Bennett easing them to a five-wicket win over Canterbury at the Basin Reserve in the capital yesterday.

Bennett, playing against his former province, took 5-14 in Canterbury’s first innings and 5-34 in the second — restricting the visitors to 118 and 156 — and the Firebirds, set 116 to win, coasted to victory inside two days.

During Canterbury’s second innings, wicketkeeper Tom Blundell equalled the Wellington record of six dismissals in an innings and 10 dismissals in a match. For Canterbury, medium pacer Henry Shipley took his maiden firstclass five-wicket bag (5-37).

Despite an opening stand of 36, getting to their target of 116 was no walk in the park for Wellington but a solid 48 from Michael Papps went a long way to keeping the innings on track.

Will Williams had snared two wickets in a an over to have Wellington briefly worried at 86 for five but Blundell and Logan van Beek settled things down again and pushed the Firebirds into triple digits.

In Hamilton, Northern Districts are 81 for three in their second innings at stumps on day two, still 86 runs behind Auckland’s first innings of 315, where test hopeful Scott Kuggeleijn took 5-36.

In Dunedin, Central Districts are 162-3 at stumps, 350 runs behind Otago’s 513 for seven declared, which included centuries to Hamish Rutherford (142) and Derek de Boorder (140). — NZN