Northern Districts showed their strength collecting the maximum 20 points from the opening round of Plunket Shield after a big win over Canterbury.
ND trying for their first title since 2011/12 as they took a seven-wicket victory off a big-name Canterbury side at Hagley Oval to kickstart their new campaign, captain Jeet Raval leading the way with a top score of 93 in the successful chase.
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Raval had solid support from red-ball run machine Bharat Popli (74) in a 172-run second-wicket partnership - the methodical Popli being one of few players in recent decades to have scored 1000 runs in a New Zealand first-class season.
Raval is now in the frame for achieving his own, relatively uncommon milestone of 10,000 first-class career runs, if he can emulate that golden summer of Popli's a decade ago.
Currently the 36-year-old skipper has 9,425 runs (all teams) from 149 first-class matches, at an average better than his age.
Brett Hampton made 50 in the first innings and took several vital wickets in the match. while Sandeep Patel compiled 56. In the second turn at bat it was Ravel who was the star.
In their turn to bowl it was Kristian Clarke took four wickets in the first innings and one in the second, while Matt Fisher took two in the first innings and three in the second with wickets being shared around the bowlers.
Canterbury made 193 all out in their second innings with the only real resistance coming from Cole McConchie scoring 43 and Daryl Mitchell 39 while Tom Latham made 26.
Northern Districts has the early competition edge heading into next week's second-round fixtures in Hamilton (where they will host another first-round winner, the Auckland Aces), Nelson (home team the Central Stags v Canterbury) and Dunedin (Otago Volts v Wellington Firebirds).