Punishing allrounder Andre Adams delivered the painful blows as Auckland piled on the agony for Otago in the State Championship cricket match at Lincoln near Christchurch yesterday.
Auckland finally called a halt when they reached an imposing 627-7 in their first innings at Bert Sutcliffe Oval after adouble century to Tim McIntosh and centuries to Rob Nicol and Adams.
Adams was particularly brutal, clubbing his way to an unbeaten 117 off just 94 deliveries to deliver the coup de grace as Auckland posted their highest score against Otago. It beat their previous best against Otago of 579, scored in the summer of 1909-10, and it came just a week after the southerners helped themselves to 601-9 declared against Canterbury.
Otago will need something extraordinary to approach that lofty figure again after stumbling to 52-4 by stumps, with two days remaining in the four-day fixture.
Auckland's mammoth score was set up by McIntosh and Nicol, who took guard yesterday morning with Auckland already setting the pace at 312-3.
Both batsmen advanced to personal best scores at this level, left-handed opener McIntosh pushing on to 205. In all, McIntosh's 10th first-class hundred occupied 465 minutes, during which he faced 367 balls and hit 26 fours and one six.
His stand with Nicol, who was later out for 160, was worth 273, just seven off the Auckland record for the fourth wicket against allcomers, set by Jeff Crowe and Dipak Patel in 1991-92.
Nicol wasted little time polishing off the 14 runs he needed to reach his century and pushed on to a career-best score, in 442 minutes off 350 balls.
Reece Young and Adams made the most of their colleagues' hard work to punish the Otago attack in a fluent eighth wicket stand of 114 before Young was run out for 79.
Adams smashed 10 fours and eight sixes as he upped the tempo to reach his century off just 87 balls as the Otago bowlers struggled following almost two days in the field.
Adams was still on a high when he charged into the bowling crease to inflict immediate blows in the Otago innings by removing Jordan Sheed and Redmond cheaply.
- NZPA
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