It wasn't looking quite so healthy on day two, when the Aces made plenty of starts, but no-one was able to carry on, and the wickets kept falling. At one stage they were 174/5, and looking quite precarious. That was until Cachopa and Munro headed out to the middle.
Cachopa batted for 6 hours to bring up his 166. I did wonder if he had read MD Crowe's piece about being able there being nothing finer than 6 hours out in the middle playing bat on ball. This was good cricket too. No smash and dash T20 styles. There was plenty of straight bat, and "showing the makers mark" Windies style. It's not a bad achievement to get your maiden first classs century with such finesse!
And as for Mr Munro, you had to be there to fully appreciate the demolition job he did on the Wellington bowling attack. His 269* came off just 252 deliveries. There were 27 4s and 14 6s. Now I know I don't get out much, but I have never seen anything like it! It wasn't irresponsible batting either, for the most part. I can remember the good old days as a kid watching Lance Cairns belligerently swinging Excalibur at the Aussies, and this did remind me of those days. And guess who was sitting in the stands watching too!
Going into lunch, Munro was sitting on 198. After lunch, those last two runs seemed to take forever to get. There was a lot of blocking and clear shouts of NO on the singles. It looked like the entire Auckland team were holding their breath and just willing him on. He seemed very determined to not give away his wicket cheaply at this point, and rightly so. However, once he crossed the 200 line, there was a different batsman out there. The next ball was aggressively smashed onto Sandringham Road for 6, narrowly missing a delivery truck. Then the next one was dispatched into the back of the West Stand at the number one ground. Gillespie and Elliott were the bowlers given the task of ending the Munro show at this time. Despite them throwing everything they had at it, nothing seemed to work. He piled on another 69 runs in much the same fashion until Auckand declared.
Even though I didn't get to see the end of the day's play, when Munro finished up unbeaten on 269, I loved the end of the second session when they came off for lunch. All the Aces were there shaking hands to congratulate Cachopa the younger and also Munro. You really get the feeling they are there for each other, and have got each other's backs. This Auckland side are a pretty tight unit, and they look like they are going to be hard to break.
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