Wellington may have made the mistake of being too cautious, too concerned about the end result of the Shell Trophy race when they stumbled to a modest first innings score of 247 on the first day of their match against Auckland at Cornwall Park today.

After being in strong positions at 157 for two wickets and 211 for five, Wellington lost two key wickets to the second new ball, and then watched in dismay as Mark Haslam, not one of the real danger-men under such comfortable batting conditions, took the last three wickets in what became the last over of the day.

Earlier Chris Drum had more or less kept Auckland afloat, with a big-hearted 22-over effort which gave him five wickets for 65, the third five-wicket bag in his career.

As Auckland are by no means the most consistent batting side in the competition the Wellington score of 247 might yet start a winning Wellington effort in a match vitally important to their final Trophy chances.

But the way Wellington started with an ominously deliberate and careful tread, one could imagine that one or two really big innings could have had Wellington 300-plus for five or six wickets by the end of the day.

Matthew Bell contributed a measured 42 at the start, Richard Jones had 20, Selwyn Blackmore the best innings of the day with 65, Grant Donaldson reaching 33.

In a more perfect world one or two of these top for men should have gone comfortably past 100. The pitch showed no vice after being covered against Auckland's rain in the previous 48 hours.

The pitch did not give the bowlers any extravagant help with the new ball, and there was little turn later for the spinners. The boundaries were not large, the outfield fast (and a little bumpy in patches).

In other words, admirable conditions for a sensibly strong batting performance.

Wellington for some reason or another could not manage to take complete control. The Auckland bowlers always looked interested, as if they expected a wicket every now and then.

Eventually the Wellington batsmen obliged, and in the last half of the innings disappeared rapidly.

There were some incongruous innings. Stephen Mather, for example, has a fine reputation as a good performer at this level. Yet he managed to spend two hours and 92 balls in scraping together nine runs. No wonder the Auckland bowlers never felt all that far from some success.

The fact that six of the top seven batsmen all reached double figures, and four of then went past 30, makes the final score of 247 not a matter of great comfort.

Auckland, trying to adjust to the draught-beer conditions after the champagne fizz of their win over Central Districts last week, looked out of the game before lunch.

But they held on grimly between lunch and tea, and in the last session simply demolished the rest of the Wellington innings. Still, Wellington had the consolation of knowing that their Trophy co-leaders had been bundled out for 155 today, so Wellington are still in the favoured position - provided they play better than they did today.

© CricInfo