Cricket: Keeper Hopkins sets record with ton in each innings

Gareth Hopkins yesterday became the first wicketkeeper in New Zealand first-class cricket to score a century in both innings of a match.

He also became the first Canterbury player to achieve the feat since Keith Thomson in 1967.

Hopkins (115 not out) broke the record for a seventh-wicket partnership for Canterbury against Auckland when he and Paul Wiseman (58 not out) scored 135, eclipsing the 130 set by David Boyle and Mark Priest in 1994.

In Canterbury's first innings, Hopkins and Andrew Ellis set a ninth-wicket record of 115.

Hopkins' heroics overshadowed the maiden first-class century scored by Tama Canning, who ended with 113 in Auckland's first innings of 478.

Canning was 98 overnight and reached his century from the third ball of the morning.

Earlier, Mark Richardson made 82 before he was taken low at first slip by Michael Papps from Wiseman.

Rob Nicol (77) and Aaron Barnes (43), who shortly leaves with his family for Wales, added 53 for the fifth wicket. Matt Horne also prospered with an excellent 72.

Auckland established a lead of 226 over their South Island rivals and when the first three wickets fell for 25 in Canterbury's second innings, it seemed just a matter of time before the hosts wrapped up the match.

Shanan Stewart fell at 77 and Aaron Redmond for 59 at 115. But the advent of Hopkins and the Nottinghamshire county player, Paul Franks, turned the tide with a sixth-wicket partnership of 82.

Hopkins gave one chance, a straight-forward catch to slip when he was on 31.

In the dressing room 15 minutes after the end of play, Hopkins still had not taken his pads off.

"I am still getting to grips with it," he said. "I just can't believe it."

"Whizzer [Wiseman] and I didn't try to farm the strike. We just got on with putting together mini-partnerships, and look what happened."

But Hopkins, according to his coach, Michael Sharpe, is not prone to talk much about his exploits. "He never talks himself up. It's his style not to, but you can see he is pretty stoked about what he has done."

In the first innings, the 26-year-old wicketkeeper-batsmen and bowler Ellis broke the record of 104, set against Auckland in the 1897-98 season by W. C. H. Wigley and C. R. Clarke.

Ellis, who came in when the score was 137 for eight, frustrated the Auckland bowlers for 96 minutes in scoring 19.

But he gave his partner so much of the strike that Hopkins scored his chanceless hundred from 107 balls.