Blundell ton gives edge to Wellington

A century from Tom Blundell has put Wellington in the box seat against Canterbury in the final round of the Plunket Shield.

Blundell scored his fourth first-class century to prop up Wellington’s innings of 264 after Canterbury had scored 197 batting first at Hagley Oval in Christchurch.

Then by stumps on day three yesterday, Canterbury, who are pushing to win the Plunket Shield title, were 126-6 with a lead of just 59.

Wellington resumed yesterday at 117-5 with Blundell not out on 48 and Peter Younghusband on 22 not out. They went on to add 184 runs for the sixth wicket before Blundell was out for 113 while Younghusband went agonisingly close to a century, scoring 97 before he was bowled by Logan van Beek.

That gave Wellington a lead of 67 runs and Canterbury’s top order collapsed to 55-5 as they tried to erase the deficit. But Andrew Ellis and Todd Astle put on 70 runs for the sixth wicket to give Canterbury some hope going into the final day.

Elsewhere, momentum has swung back in Auckland’s favour in their match against Central Districts at Napier. After rain and fog allowed only 15 overs at McLean Park on Wednesday, CD had the better of the second day at 63-1 after Auckland scored 200-9 declared batting first.

But CD’s batting collapsed yesterday and they were all out for 181. Auckland were 190-4 by the close of play, with a lead of 209 runs.

In the other game, Northern Districts face a big chase on the final day to beat Otago at Dunedin despite seven wickets from Ish Sodhi.

ND were 15-0 at stumps, still needing 332 runs to win after Otago declared their second innings closed at 189-8 to make a game of things.