KEY POINTS:
Central Districts are alone on top of the national championship after a second consecutive outright win, toppling Northern Districts by eight wickets in Hamilton yesterday.
Despite a fourth first-class century by ND opener BJ Watling, CD were set only 96 in the final session to win, and reached
99 for two.
Opener Peter Ingram hit 38 to get the chase moving, rounding off a terrific personal game, in which his first innings 247 set a CD individual batting record.
Last night, he paid tribute to a strong work ethic in the CD squad.
"It's great to be part of a fantastic team environment," he said. "The boys trained very hard pre-season. I got lucky with big runs here, but the bowlers got 20 wickets and that was the key because it's a good wicket here."
Having established a 125-run first-innings lead, CD bowled their hosts out for 249.
A defiant Watling was first in and last out, hitting 16 fours in his 283-ball innings of 111.
The win, following their comprehensive win over Auckland in Napier a week ago, sets CD's season up nicely, and they have a week off to prepare for their third State Championship game against Otago in Napier. But Ingram say the guard won't go down.
"It doesn't mean anything come the next game. We'll just keep training hard and working together."
As for his own monumental innings, Ingram gave the verbal equivalent of a shrug of the shoulders.
"I was just doing my routines, backing my instincts. If it was there to hit I tried to hit it, and my concentration was good."
Auckland had their turn on a peach of a batting strip at Eden Park yesterday. Their mission: to chase Wellington's 533 for five declared in a first innings dogfight.
They began the day at 133 without loss, but lost captain Richard Jones early and Wellington were able to chip wickets out through the day, until a rearguard defensive action from Colin de Grandhomme and Tarun Nethula put an end to the visitors' hopes.
When they came together, Wellington had 28 overs to get the last three wickets. They got none as de Grandhomme (43 off 91 balls) and Nethula (17 from 80) parked themselves in the middle, Auckland finishing at 441 for seven.
Opener Tim McIntosh was Auckland's anchor through the first half of the day, hitting 191, his second hundred in three games this season. It was his 13th century for the province, eclipsing the old record he had shared with Trevor Franklin.
McIntosh brought up his 100 lofting spinner Mark Houghton over the long off fence, one of five sixes in the innings to go with 16 fours before touching a catch to wicketkeeper Chris Nevin off spinner Luke Woodcock.
He added 114 with Reece Young for the second wicket, but Auckland were always behind the required run rate to push for first innings points.
The pitch was the real winner. At one point, over the latter part of Wellington's innings and the first half of Auckland's, 559 runs were scored for the loss of only two wickets.
Watling and McIntosh's tons brought to 12 the hundreds in the championship in seven matches, which at least should give the national selectors some numbers to ponder.
McIntosh has a royal chance to press his test claims when Auckland play the West Indies on the same strip starting next Friday.
Big runs then, in good batting conditions against higher quality opposition, will enhance his argument should the selectors go looking for an in-form opener.
In Invercargill, Otago and Canterbury both produced early declarations in a bid to force an outright decision and it almost worked. Canterbury declared their first innings at 174 for five, 178 runs adrift of Otago. Otago in turn pulled out at 113 for five off 17 overs, leading Canterbury 292 to win.
But Canterbury ended seven runs shy, at 285 for seven.
Points: CD 16, Auckland and Wellington 9, Otago 4, ND and Canterbury 0.