By TERRY MADDAFORD
Only a defiant unbeaten 77 from Canterbury captain Gary Stead spoiled Grant Bradburn's day in the Shell Trophy match with Northern Districts at Whangarei's Cobham Oval yesterday.
Bradburn celebrated his record-breaking 105th game for ND with four for 56 from 25 overs. Without Stead's 196-minute innings as Canterbury reached 175 for six, he might have done even better.
The game, its start delayed until noon, was a frustrating on-off affair. But those breaks played into Northern's hands, with four wickets falling either at the start of play or soon after the players had returned.
The interruptions and four exceptional catches forced Canterbury to play catch-up for much of the day, in which 84 overs were bowled on a pitch which, despite the dire predictions, did not appear to have much wrong with it.
When Robbie Frew fell to a smart Matthew Hart slip catch in Simon Doull's first over, the doom-and-gloom merchants were quick to point at the brownish strip.
If Jarrod Englefield and Harley James were perturbed they did not show it in adding 47 before James fell to Bruce Martin with another superb Mark Bailey catch.
Englefield was next - the first wicket for Bradburn - when Michael Parlane somehow held on to a close-in rocket.
The next catch was just as smart. Marcel McKenzie looked to snick a ball over slips for four but could only watch in disbelief as James Marshall - surely one of the best fieldsmen in the competition this season - pulled in a catch which most thought had flown past him.
Bradburn's other wickets - Aaron Redmond bowled before he had scored, and Gareth Hopkins taken in a running catch by Marshall behind wicketkeeper Robbie Hart - allowed him to take his haul for ND to 219, five shy of Tom Puna's second best for Northern. Cliff Dickeson's record is a distant 282.
Bradburn did, however, edge past Andy Roberts' record of 104 appearances for ND.
Only Wellington's Evan Gray (120) and Robert Vance (119), and Otago's Warren Lees (108), have played more games for their first-class association.
The game, with two days to play, is evenly poised.
Cricket: Bradburn makes it 105 for ND
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