Auckland complete successive wins in State Championship

Tim McIntosh: top State Championship run scorer Tama Canning: top State Championship wicket-taker

Auckland have won the State Championship for 2002/03, a successful defence, a feat they last achieved in 1994/95 and 1995/96.

In the following two years, Canterbury also managed successive titles.

Since then the series has been won by Central Districts, Northern Districts and Wellington, leaving Otago as the only side not to have won the country's premier first-class competition since 1996. Otago last won the series in 1987/88.

Auckland sealed the title today when Wellington, the only team who could challenge them, finished with a loss at Otago's hands in Alexandra.

The final points were: Auckland 34, Wellington 31, Otago 26, Northern Districts 22, Central Districts 22, Canterbury 16.

A late run of consistent weather has resulted in some outstanding batting during the last few rounds of the series.

The most notable individual feat of the summer was the triple century scored by Canterbury's Peter Fulton. It was the first time a triple century had been scored in this country since the summer of 1952/53 when Bert Sutcliffe scored 385 for Otago against Canterbury.

The only double century of the summer was completed by Matthew Hart today who scored 201 not out for Northern Districts against Auckland.

What was interesting about Auckland's success was its dominance of the run-scoring list for the summer. Clearly the key ingredient to success is runs. They had three players in the top six scoring list during the summer, yet only one of their bowlers, Tama Canning, who was the highest wicket-taker in the competition with 46, was in the top six of the bowling list for most wickets.

Tim McIntosh scored most runs in the competition with 820, Matt Horne hit 671 and Rob Nicol 664.

The advantage Auckland enjoyed over Wellington this year was probably in its run scoring. Richard Jones was easily the pick of Wellington's batsmen with 726 runs.

But there was a significant gap back to Chris Nevin, who hit 532, and Matthew Bell, 499, which left Wellington lacking the greater consistency of the Aucklanders.

In their bowling, Wellington relied on the medium pace of Matthew Walker, who took 45 wickets, and the medium-fast bowling of Iain O'Brien 34 and Andrew Penn 29.

Otago proved the big improver of the year, finishing in third place. Their achievement was based around the batting in their top-order of Craig Cumming, 751 runs, and Mohammad Wasim, 651, and the bowling of Shayne O'Connor, 42, Kerry Walmsley, 37, and Warren McSkimming, 26.

How best then to measure the showpiece domestic competition, when 15 of the country's top players were taking part in the World Cup?

That is the conundrum when looking at the State Championship.

However, it is a fact of modern cricket life, that the international players will only take part in a lowly percentage of the domestic cricket programme in any given year so it can be safely said that this year has been little different.

At the time of the summer when the World Cup was contested, New Zealand would normally be involved in a Test series, which would mean only 12 players would still be out of the competition at any one time anyway.

Do three less players available for the domestic programme represent a significant dropping in standard? Probably not.

With that in mind it comes back to the view that no matter who is taking part, the runs still have to be scored, the wickets taken and the catches held.

Thirty-six centuries were scored over the Championship this summer while last year 33 centuries were scored and, in the first summer of the return to two rounds of the domestic championship, in 2000/01, there were 39 centuries.

At the same time there have been 22 five-wicket bags taken by bowlers this year, compared with 31 last summer and 28 in the season before.

The fact that games are tending to last longer suggests that players are learning to pace themselves more in the four-day game and there is greater benefit from exposure to so much cricket over the two rounds.

The most pleasing thing about this year's batting is the sight of young players, Jamie How, Fulton, Nicol and Nick Horsley among the top 10 runs scorers, with another cluster of younger players just behind them.

That is a sign of developing health and a significant factor in boosting the standards of the competition in the future.