Whoever dreamt up the quality in Canterbury cricket which causes all opponents in crucial games to choke at the most vital moments should patent it, because it's a winner.

Yet again, Canterbury, having under-performed with the bat, strangled the life out of Central Districts while defending 174/8 in the first of the best-of-three Shell Cup finals to finally claim a 13-run win.

Last week Canterbury did exactly the same against Wellington when defending 207.

It's recent history is full of similar instances where seemingly on the floor and down and out, the Canterbury sluggers have picked themselves up, dusted off their gloves and proceeded to deliver knockout punches from nowhere.

It is an amazing quality.

But the signs are there with the diminishing scores that the formula may need some upgrading.

The margin for error is narrowing and it was only another inopportune run out of CD captain Jacob Oram that opened the way for Canterbury to finally probe open the game and notch up the all important away win to take into Saturday's second final at Jade Stadium.

It was not a game memorable for its batting, and that is what makes one day cricket such a spectacle.

However, local patrons would have been delighted with the closeness of the finish, although the reality was that it was always going to be the comeback of comebacks to knock off the win from 74/6.

CD coach Dipak Patel didn't think the slower nature of the wicket had anything to do with the final result.

He felt the top order batsmen from both teams would probably have welcomed the chance for a second bat on the pitch.

The loss of early wickets, getting bogged down while trying to recover, and the sheer experience of Canterbury under pressure had told on CD.

"Chris Martin bowled well but I think it was more of a case that our batsmen got themselves out," he said.

Canterbury captain Gary Stead said that if his side had only managed to score 150 he thought that that it would have to do something special to win.

"But with 175 the target, the view we took was, `We've got the runs, they've got to get them,'" he said.

Stead acknowledged that after the CD bowlers did such a fine job in having Canterbury 56/5, the 67-run sixth wicket partnership between the perennial Chris Harris and Carl Anderson was the match-winning effort for Canterbury.

"We wanted Carl to do the sort of job for us that Mark Priest used to do and he was a great foil for Harry," he said.

Anderson was out for 39 in the 46th over, but Harris carried on and was out in the 49th over for 51.

It was a typical Harris effort and followed his 60 to set up the winning total against Wellington in the last game.

If ever it becomes the tradition to honour Canterbury's sports heroes in the American style of building statues to them, Harris deserves one at Jade Stadium. He is so consistently outstanding in recovering lost causes.

CD's Jacob Oram tried to emulate him. He had already done enough with the ball by taking 2-31 in his 10 overs. But superstardom, in the CD region anyway, was his for the taking in an innings of 65 that Stead rated the innings of the match.

With the score on 139, he lost concentration in a few moments of mad-headedness which afflicted CD as it peeled off two run outs in two overs to remove the pair of Oram and Bevan Griggs, who had added 63 for the seventh wicket.

The task then proved too tough for the bowlers, who had already made their contribution to the game, and it was the CD top order who were left answering questions about their abilities to cope with the speed of Martin, accuracy of Ryan Burson and Nathan Astle and the control of Stephen Cunis.

"Ryan bowled superbly well and while he didn't get the wickets that Chris did, it was great to see the backs of [Mathew] Sinclair and [Craig] Spearman early," Stead said.

To keep the series alive, CD must now regather themselves and enter the Canterbury den at Jade Stadium to try and pull off a winner in Saturday's day-night contest.

© CricInfo