Three centuries, 605 runs, smashed records and a fine Wellington day made for one of the great Ford Trophy Grand Final showdowns.

Canterbury and the Central Stags both turned up to play and put on a memorable day’s cricket at the Cello Basin Reserve in the last Domestic white-ball match for the 2025/26 summer.

For top qualifier Canterbury, this was always going to be a special match.

It was head Coach Peter Fulton’s last appointment with the team after six seasons before departing for his new job at Middlesex, and his team was fired up to send him off to Departures with a threepeat of Ford Trophy championship titles.

After a strong season and back-to-back titles in this competition over the past two years, winning the toss and putting a 300+ score in a final on the tins at the Basin, they had every right to believe.

Canterbury captain Henry Nicholls has had a special summer, so has his senior ally at the top of the order, Tom Latham.

Both belted more than 500 runs in the campaign (to finish as the season's top two batters overall) and Nicholls had already broken Canterbury’s record for most centuries in one summer (three).

Now he extended that to four, with 115 off 125 balls in the Grand Final — equalling George Worker’s record for most centuries by any batter, any team in a Ford Trophy summer, Worker having done so for the Auckland Aces at the end of his career.

Surely there was one hand on the trophy. The Central Stags batters would need to back up from a huge effort just two days ago for in the Elimination Final. Teams just don’t chase down big totals very often in a Final.

And so on.

However, the Stags held an entirely different opinion of how this game should play out.

PHOTOSPORT

Rewinding to the start of the day, Nicholls elected to bat on the kind of deck that needed caution and time to get in.

But Nicholls and Latham steadily slathered on 185 together off 190 balls for the second wicket, holding court for some 31 overs on a cool, breezy morning that developed nicely, like their partnership, into a fine, bright afternoon.

Latham’s own strong vein of Domestic form carried on to see him within sight of a century himself, reaching 80.

He and Nicholls broke Canterbury’s all-time second wicket record stand in their matches against the Stags - the previous had been 166 by Latham himself and Chad Bowes, who had been an early loss on this occasion, last year.

At 194/1, Canterbury should have had the perfect launching pad, after the classy display working the ball, turning over the strike, and building the proverbial platform.

But after Nicholls departed in the 35th at 194/2, the Stags bowled themselves back into it in the last 15 overs.

Rhys Mariu followed, caught off Ray Toole (2/65) after a quick 28. 

Toole had enjoyed his left-arm match-up with Nicholls and, while it was spinner Angus Schaw who got the big wicket (Nicholls, trapped), he and Randell came back and put the squeeze on Canterbury, preventing them from capitalising on their base.

Cricket is a game full of statistics and Randell had his 100th one-day wicket when Latham was caught straight after Mariu’s departure.

Dean Foxcroft provided the moment of fielding brilliance with a sharp catch at cover, sticking his hand up for a stinger at 237/4. He could scarcely believe it himself.

Canterbury unravelled somewhat then, the score 290/7 at the death as they lost vital momentum. Ultimately they just squeaked past a 300-total, when a much bigger statement had been on the cards for so long.

Still, a chase of 303 in a final is no doddle.

The Stags’ innings began as almost a mirror image of Canterbury’s as they lost an early wicket, Brad Schmulian unable to add to his two centuries this season.

Again it was the second-wicket stand that defined the innings. Curtis Heaphy and Will Young joined forced as the sun began streaming down after lunch.

WILL YOUNG'S CAREER BEST | PHOTOSPORT

Heaphy had taken on a big workload for the day. The Stags had lost their senior keeper-batter Dane Cleaver from the XI when his back seized up just before play and Heaphy — who had kept for the team before — took the keeping gloves.

Heaphy had scored a century the last time these two sides met, in Nelson in the 10th round six days earlier.

Young was fresh off a century (105) against the Wellington Firebirds on Friday here at this same ground in the Friday eliminator that the Stags won by a colossal margin.

Surely bodies were tired, but the will to win was evidently not fading.

The pair frustrated Canterbury as they piled on a milestone of their own: the new Stags second wicket partnership record of 257, bettering Ben Smith and Worker’s 145 in Nelson in 2019.

Young was on the way to his highest List A one-day score for any team (previously 136) and his sixth Ford Trophy hundred for the Stags.

The decisive difference in this hard-fought match was the impetus the Stags were able to generate when it came time to lift the run rate in the back end of the match.

A BIG SHIFT FROM CURTIS HEAPHY | PHOTOSPORT

They were 216/1 at the end of the 36th over, Michael Rae was conceding only singles, but when Matt Boyle came on for the next, Young and Heaphy decided it was time to ‘go’ and peeled 11 runs from it.

Then they took nine from Rae, nine from Sheat, 10 from Lachie Harper…

Young hit two of his four sixes for the day as the worm squiggled upwards. He would finish with 15 fours and four sixes all up.

It was the Young and Heaphy show for some 38 overs and it ended when Nicholls took a straightforward catch at square leg, at 276/2.

The young gun had struck his 105 off 123 balls while his senior partner would go on to 157 off 132.

Tom Bruce had rushed back from representing Scotland at the ICC T20 World Cup in India but lasted just eight balls before Rae got a wicket.

But by then, the scores were level and the Stags didn’t need a couple more overs to get one last run for a six-wicket victory, and their first title under captain Jayden Lennox and coach Greg Hay.

It was their first Ford Trophy title since 2023 when they had also beaten Canterbury in the Grand Final.

These two teams had been the only ones to hold the one-day trophy over the last four years, but for Canterbury it was now a double blow after also having missed out in the Super Smash Grand Final a few weeks earlier, to Northern Brave.

The six highest partnerships in this year's Ford Trophy notably came from just two teams - the two grand finalists, the Stags and Canterbury (three each).

The Stags provided eight of the 14 highest partnerships.

Allrounder Josh Clarkson, in his first season as the team's number one allrounder, had a special season as he finished as the competition's top wicket-taker (23) as well as the top allrounder with a top 10 finish in the run-scoring department. 

Clarkson's haul was the second best in a single season for the Stags, with Andrew Mathieson's 31 in 2014/15 the Stags' Ford Trophy record.

And no fewer than five of the Stags batters finished in the top 10 run-scorers in the country: Brad Schmulian, Dean Foxcroft, Will Young, Curtis Heaphy and Clarkson.

A job well done.

THE FORD TROPHY 2025/26 GRAND FINAL


Sunday, 22 February, Cello Basin Reserve

Q1 Canterbury lost to Q2 Central Stags by 6 wickets

SCORECARD

Article added: Monday 23 February 2026