The sixth round State Championship match between Canterbury and Central Districts swung back CD's way for a final time today.

Andrew Schwass, the season's leading wicket taker, was mostly responsible for dismissing Canterbury for 288 shortly after lunch, which gave the CD top order batsmen the easy task of knocking off the 77 runs needed for victory.

Central scored its second successive win, by nine wickets, at 4.26pm, while Canterbury, despite some successful sessions, lost for the second game in a row after being early pacesetters in a congested championship table.

Further good news for Central came when Jacob Oram passed a boundary-edge test with New Zealand Cricket fitness advisor Warren Frost.

Mathew Sinclair, who glanced the winning run, confirmed his readiness for Test cricket with a glowing 171 and Lance Hamilton re-announced his class by taking nine wickets and swinging the ball around throughout both Canterbury innings. Canterbury's Wade Cornelius and Shanan Stewart also added to their reputations at a freezing Village Green this week.

Provincial little men had their day too, with archetypal nudger, the determined and valuable Robbie Frew scoring a six-hour century. But it was not enough to save the game for his team.

Another modest looking player, CD medium pacer Schwass (6-82), turned the match once more when he took three wickets in four overs before lunch today, and another two after, taking him to the top of the country's wicket-taking chart, with 30.

He has more than doubled his 23 career victims, taken in three seasons before this year. Schwass said, "maybe it was just more aggression" that helped add a six-for to his season's best figures of 7-36 in CD's win over Northern Districts back in balmy December.

"It's just about getting on a roll and bowling to your strengths," Schwass told CricInfo. "It just did a bit off the seam today but we put Canterbury under a lot of pressure by bowling tight lines and they folded."

The 27-year-old bowled 18 overs in a row either side of lunch taking 5-40 today. The key wicket was of Frew, who, when on 115, was tempted by a long hop outside the off stump from Schwass' 'bonus ball'. The dismissal came after the Nelsonian had bowled a no-ball with the sixth delivery of his 25th over.

Schwass' skiddy off stump-aimed outswinger was also enough to tempt Aaron Redmond, the only other batsman who could have been expected to knock a quick fifty and set CD a decent target.

"Enforcing the follow-on was always going to be a big ask," said CD coach Dipak Patel. "But we had the momentum and we wanted to keep that going."

Oram is "93% fit" to help continue that progress with a return for CD against Northern Districts at Hamilton next Monday, while Canterbury's Warren Wisneski is fighting back from a hamstring pull for the visit to Wellington. Canterbury may strengthen the batting by recalling Peter Fulton at the expense of the out-of-form Jarrod Englefield.

Meanwhile, with Adam Parore's withdrawal from cricket today, Canterbury's Gareth Hopkins became a frontrunner to take his place in the England Test series. Then again, as Patel said, CD's Bevan Griggs "has done everything that has been asked of him," and a host of other unheralded keepers are in the frame. Hopkins would only say that he would "wait and see."

© CricInfo