A day that was twice interrupted by rain belonged entirely to Northern Districts, who should maintain their title challenge with six points for an outright win tomorrow. Northern's dominance was down to some attritional batting by Matthew Hart and Joseph Yovich and some spectacular hitting from Simon Doull.

For much of the day the scoring rate struggled to get above one and a half an over. When Doull came to the crease it increased fourfold.

After the dismissal of James Marshall for a season's best 29, Hart and Yovich settled into a partnership of 98 for the sixth wicket, one short of the Northern record against Central. Their priority was survival. The first boundary of the day did not come until 15 minutes before lunch. The Central seam attack continued to be testing and accurate, with Hefford giving away half run an over for much of the first session.

Before and after the first break for rain Hart increased the runflow, hitting eight fours and a six before being dismissed for 69 from 191 deliveries. Yovich followed soon after. He owed his survival to the judgement of the umpires on several occasions, but battled through, facing 133 deliveries without finding the boundary.

Simon Doull passed Yovich's score in 109 fewer deliveries. After hurting his leg at the start of his innings he apparently decided to avoid running between the wickets, opting for boundaries instead. Four successive balls from Andrew Schwass went to the fence, three to long on and one to square leg.

Doull was last out for 59, including two sixes and nine fours. He faced 58 deliveries. His attack today was more selective than his largely-successful pinch hitting in the Shell Cup. He picked the balls to hit and usually his judgement was sound. When he came in Northern were on the verge of being bowled out with a lead of a little over 200. Doull's knock probably put the game beyond Central's reach.

Andrew Schwass took the first five-wicket haul of his first-class career. Even in the face of the Doull onslaught his figures of 27.3-8-53-5 were impressive. At 26 he is something of a late developer, but is set to become a key member of the Central squad in both forms of the game. He bowls deceptively innocuous-looking seamers with accuracy, intelligence and great competitiveness.

Northern coach Chris Kuggeleijn spoke to CricInfo about the key figures in his team's domination of the day. He said that the key to Matthew Hart's resurgence is his organisation.

"He has got his game worked out. He gets into line and his feet move well."

Kuggeleijn agreed that Joseph Yovich has had an outstanding match with bat and ball.

"He battled well today. Joey is improving all the time. As a bowler he has genuine pace and works at his game."

And Doull?

"He is just enjoying his cricket and playing well. He bowled well and unluckily yesterday. He deserved a couple of wickets."

Kuggeleijn agreed that the pitch was better than the performance of the batsmen on the first two days suggested, but insisted that it was "not a belter. There is a lot of bounce, especially with the new ball. There has been some very good bowling. The bowlers have not given away many freebies."

Yesterday, Kuggeleijn's opposite number, Dipak Patel, suggested that lack of application was the problem. Hart and Yovich provided this in quantity today, and Northern should be victorious tomorrow as a result.

© CricInfo