The Canterbury Wizards have ridden the coat tails of batsman Rob Nicol all the way to the final of the Men's One-Day cricket competition, beating Auckland by 41 runs in their preliminary final in Christchurch.
The 27-year-old right-handed opener crafted a quality 87 off 119 balls with 13 boundaries to help steer his side to a challenging 268 for eight before Auckland came up well short as they were dismissed for 227 in the 44th over.
The Auckland Aces still have a chance to book a rematch with Canterbury because they next contest the semi-final against Otago on Wednesday.
Otago remained alive by winning yesterday's elimination semi-final beating Northern Districts by five wickets in Queenstown after rain forced the contest to be decided by the Duckworth-Lewis system.
