ND spinners shine

Black Caps spinners Ish Sodhi and Mitchell Santner have helped turn Northern Districts fortunes on day two of their Plunket Shield match against the Central Stags.

Sodhi finished with four wickets as the pair combined to take seven scalps to keep Northern Districts’ hopes alive.

Santner (30no) is backing that performance up with the bat as he and Daryl Mitchell (41no) are fighting back from early wickets lost in Northern’s second innings.

Day two resumed with Central on 142-4 – trailing by just 25 runs – but Northern was able to take regular wickets to dismiss the Central Stags for 216 to give the tabletopping Stags a first innings lead of just 49.

Sodhi, who had one wicket overnight, took three more yesterday as fellow spinner Santner also claimed three scalps of his own to record his best first-class figures.

Ajaz Patel, who took three wickets for the Stags on day one, chimed in with a valuable 42 runs.

Regular wickets tumbled early in Northern’s second innings as they were reduced to 92-5 when Dean Brownlie was removed for 20.

At Rangiora more time was lost in the Canterbury-Auckland match. No play was possible yesterday after a session was lost on the first day after Canterbury had been sent in and reached 143 for three by stumps.

In Dunedin, the last-placed Otago have found themselves well placed against the Wellington Firebirds who they dismissed 284.

The home side’s Matthew Bacon finished with the standout figures of 6-73. Then Otago openers Cam Hawkins and former Black Cap Hamish Rutherford put on 89 for the opening wicket.