Otago heeds coach's advice to wrap up first win

Otago answered several of their new coach's calls when they outplayed Auckland to win their Shell Trophy cricket match at Eden Park today with six wickets and a day to spare.

Otago, 157 ahead of Auckland on the first innings, stopped the more stubborn Auckland second innings at 201 late this afternoon, and cantered home with 85 for four wickets, Matthew Horne leading the way with 50 not out.

Dennis Aberhart, the burly master-mind of so many past Canterbury teams is having his first season with Otago, and on today's evidence his drill is producing the right results.

One of Aberhart's aims it to get a winning habit in the Otago side. They started badly in their first two games, against Central Districts and Wellington.

"Then we got a boost from the defeat of Wellington in the Shell Cup one-dayer and this win against Auckland makes it two in a row, and Otago do not do that very often."

Aberhart insists that his players develop a good work ethic, they play to support each other, and they try and do the basics properly.

The Otago men worked very closely to those plans as they consistently out-played Auckland throughout most of the three days. Generally their bowlers worked to an accurate line, although Aberhart was quick to point out they were off course on the first morning when the new ball was sent zooming all over the place.

Thereafter the Otago medium-fast men kept fairly steady pressure on the erratic Auckland batsmen, with Paul Wiseman probing for other chinks in the thin Auckland armour with his off-spin.

It says much for the consistent work of the Otago bowlers, backed by crisp and energetic fielding, that no Aucklander could score 50 or over in any of the 22 innings. In fact only two Auckland batsmen, Richard King and Dion Nash (both who learned some or much of their early cricket skills in Dunedin) could score 30 or more.

King scored 34 and 49, Nash 32 and 49, and it said much for the consistent quality of the Otago bowling that even these two batsmen seldom looked in confident or commanding mood.

It may be the Auckland batting style on their home Eden Park No 2 ground, or a quirk in the umpiring of two senior men, Barry Frost and Doug Cowie, but Auckland suffered from a lop-sided lbw count.

\ No fewer than eight Aucklanders -- five in the first innings, three in the second -- were out leg-before, while Auckland won their only lbw appeal halfway through Otago's modest chase for victory this evening.

The Otago quicker bowlers were consistent but not quite as dominating as that lbw statistic would suggest. Neither did the pitch contain any special vices, although it was to Otago's advantage that their skipper Matt Horne opted to bowl first.

But the one-sided lbw count suggested, with more truth, that the Aucklanders lacked concentration over longish periods, and that a really good Otago delivery always had a chance to get past a lazy batting stroke.

The Otago cricketers are not yet world-beaters. But on the Eden Park evidence they are certainly not lazy about their cricket.