Canterbury achieved a commanding position, partly with the complicity of Central Districts, before stumps on the first day of their State Championship match at Pukekura Park today - a day of four innings and four seasons.

Central's decision to ask Canterbury to bat on winning the toss and on a day shortened by 20 overs because of rain was ill-considered and by stumps Canterbury had raced at more than 3.5 runs per over to 301/5.

Jarrod Englefield, Michael Papps, Gary Stead and Chris Harris, who was 46 not out at stumps, contributed with innings of varied character - though not as varied as the weather that gave them their backdrop - to Canterbury's satisfying opening day.

Anyone who paid a fleeting visit to Pukekura Park today and went on to relay impressions of the scene to friends or workmates faced the risk of being directly contradicted about the conditions in which the match was played.

Some might have said it was brilliantly fine and others that it was oppresively cloudy, some that there was never a threat of rain and others that it had rained with persistence and ferocity. It might have been called, alternately, calm and distressingly windy, warm and bitterly cold.

In truth, it was all of these things at different times - hot and cold, calm and windy, clear and cloudy, thunderous and benign. The match was framed by two periods of rain - one before the match that delayed the start by 90 minutes and another at the end that brought play to a close as the final scheduled over was being bowled.

There were two further rain interuptions during the day - immediately after lunch - and these in combination stripped 20 overs from the diet of the afternoon. But rarely, and in a more sublime setting, has cricket been played in such extremes.

When the rain of the morning had passed, the day become sweetly, genially sunny. There were blue skies and from the sea beyond the city - visible as a blue smudge from the eastern terrace - there was a warm and soothing breeze.

But that breeze, which grew in intensity, brought up with it from the coast a bank of marauding grey cloud which first crept on the ground and then, when backs were turned at lunchtime, pounced and brought forth a sudden and surprising deluge.

Then the weather became fine again as the clouds raced before the wind and there was an afternoon as pleasant as any cricketer might beg. But again there was to be a change and the wind became boisterous and the clouds returned with bully intent and brooded over the ground.

And where there had been sunshine there was gloom, and suddenly a racing wind and then the stentorian voice of thunder which heralded by minutes a final, quenching downpour.

In these circumstances, Canterbury fashioned its innings.

First on stage, under a painted canopy of blue sky, was Englefield who set the tone for the innings with a calm and authoritative 57. Then came Papps who stayed almost three hours and who made 92 - and who deserved a century - with 16 fours or 62 runs from boundaries.

There was Stead who grafted in Papps' shadow and was deprived, as he was, of a milestone - falling for 49. Then there was Harris who remained in celebratory mood - as a man of such generous temperament and sparkling form should - and who had three sixes among his 46 runs by stumps.

There were partnerships of 90 in 82 minutes between Englefield and Papps, which spanned lunch, and of 104 between Papps and Stead, which occupied the second session and took only 88 minutes.

Canterbury raced along as if their scoring was being harried by the wind as the clouds had been. Englefield stood giant at the crease, upright and urgent and emphatic. Papps, shorter, stocky but no loss decisive took Englefield's scoring rate and took it to an even faster level.

Stead steadied and Harris rushed towards the early conclusion, eager to see Canterbury through 300.

Central's insistence that Canterbury should bat was based on their impression of the pitch, that emerged from covers with a livid green appearance, and the supposition that it might aid the seamers now if at no other stage of the match.

They were mistaken. Pukekura Park pitches are always kind to batsmen and that kindness was enlarged by short boundaries and a lightning outfield. Nor did Central bowl well and there were among their indignities today a pile of 16 no-balls which made them bowl almost three more overs than they should.

The fielding was energetic but there is little chance in front of the square boundaries in New Plymouth to stem the flow of batsmen in the form of Canterbury's four.

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