After yet another puzzling display of their Jekyll and Hyde character, the Auckland cricket team face the giddy prospect of a big win over their old enemy Canterbury when their Shell Trophy match ends at the Eden Park Outer Oval tomorrow.

This is the same Auckland team who last week played like timid schoolboys as they were dismantled by Wellington in three days, after roaring through Central Districts like a pride of lions in the previous match.

In this present game Auckland have played very good cricket to take a strong grip on the game, which will leave Auckland needing seven wickets or Canterbury 316 runs tomorrow for an outright result.

Auckland performed most of the manoeuvres which may well result in a splendidly-fought battle today - even if Auckland start as the heavier battalion.

Auckland closed their first innings at 361 for four wickets before the start of play on this morning, remembering that the first day had been lost to rain.

Giving a strong display of aggressive medium-fast bowling backed by smart fielding, Auckland demolished the Canterbury first innings for 137, declined to enforce the follow-on, batted 30 overs to score 149 for six, and then left 126 overs today and tomorrow with Canterbury needing 374 runs and Auckland ten wickets.

In the 26 overs this evening Canterbury lost the usual early wicket, two more at 37 and were battling on a turning pitch at 58 for three.

The one incident that may have turned the match away from Canterbury came this evening when Brooke Walker, the leg spinner, dismissed Marcel McKenzie and Gary Stead with consecutive lbw decisions - the result of the batsmen being deceived by the top-spinner and removed by umpiring which during this match has not always been the batsmen's friend.

McKenzie struggled in both innings, and in the Canterbury side at the moment struggling along without their international players, Stead is the kingpin who this season has so often led his side splendidly, especially in adversity.

The sight of Stead being tweaked out by Walker's spin may have caused a Canterbury nightmare or two overnight. Walker had struggled to show Test form in recent weeks, and was scarcely noticed during the Canterbury first innings.

Yet he already has two wickets for 12 runs from four overs. At the other end another former New Zetland spinner Mark Haslam has been bowling very tidily and efficiently in recent games, so the Canterbury batsmen face a turning torment tomorrow.

The Canterbury first innings batting was disappointing, apart from Stead with what looked like an effortless 39 which was suddenly cut short with the umpire agreeing with Haslam's demand for lbw.

Gareth Hopkins worked very hard for his 22 as he tried to protect the bottom half of the innings, and Peter Fulton's first major innings gave hints of better things to come - especially tomorrow which he will enter 12 not out, alongside the very patient Jarrod Englefield, who batted throughout the 26 overs for 29 runs.

But there were some easy wickets for the Aucklanders, especially Tama Canning who brushed aside three immediately after lunch at the tail of the innings.

Chris Drum deserved better than his three for 27 from 11 overs. A few years ago Drum looked an international bowler in the making, but somehow the New Zealand Cricket machine that is supposed to hone and develop the promising bowlers left Drum of slightly less classical style and promise afterward.

Now Drum is bowling to his own beat, and he has looked especially good with the new ball, beating the bat frequently, and still able to come back strongly later in the innings.

Today Chris Martin and Shane Bond of Canterbury, two very fine bowlers, gave a brief cameo of seam bowling class and speed at the top of the Auckland second innings before Richard King righted the ship with a belligerent 70.

Yet Drum lost nothing in comparison with Martin, and may offer a little more variety than Bond.

There was one final frill on today's play for Auckland. Kyle Mills, their astonishing bowler turned batsman, scored nine not out, and thus lifted his Trophy tally to 606 runs from six completed innings - and achieved the feat of having a batting average of precisely 101.

© CricInfo