Canterbury attack faces big test

How bad do you want it, Canterbury? That is basically what the last day of their Plunket Shield clash with Otago comes down to today.

Having secured themselves first innings points yesterday morning, Canterbury now have four for the competition, which equals their entire tally from last season.

Are they happy with that or are they going to really hurt themselves trying to bowl out Otago on a very flat MainPower Oval wicket?

The cards are certainly in their favour, but their bowlers offered little in the 23 overs before stumps last night as Otago cruised to 65 without loss in pursuit of an improbable 471 to win.

"It would have been nice to get a couple of wickets tonight, but it wasn't to be," Canterbury coach Bob Carter said.

"The wicket's pretty flat and we've got to make sure we bowl straight and put them under pressure and hopefully take 10 wickets ... We have got the bowlers who are capable of taking wickets and we've just got to do that.

"We bowled them out in 70-odd overs in the first innings and we've got to do the same in [the remaining] 97 overs in the second innings."

After quickly wrapping up the Otago first innings yesterday, Canterbury posted 265 for five in 73 overs, in their second turn at bat. The standout performance again came from Peter Fulton, who backed up his first innings 172 with another 77 quality runs.

While his aggregate for the match is impressive, it almost pales in comparison with the way he accumulated it. Otago captain Brendon McCullum set him defence fields in each innings and Fulton remained patient, respected the bowlers and methodically picked them off when the opportunity arose.

Prior to that Canterbury had declined to enforce the follow-on, after dismissing Otago for 235.

"We'd bowled too many overs [71] for our bowlers to go back out there again," Carter said. "We thought we might as well have another bat, because it's important for the players to keep getting into form and ready for other games.

"We were always looking at 120 overs [to bowl Otago out again], which is a number that keeps everyone in the game, really.

"The two opening bowlers [Shane Bond and Chris Martin] are raring to go, as they proved this morning, and again tonight. Hopefully we can nick a couple out early and really get into the job at hand."

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