But, for many of the players, their thoughts will be with their friends and family in Christchurch.
The earthquake that rocked the city on Tuesday has left the Otago team torn.
Suddenly, its first-class match against Central Districts seems insignificant.
The Broom brothers, Neil and Darren, grew up in Christchurch, James McMillan's family had a cleaning business in the city and Craig Cumming began his first-class career for Canterbury.
But everyone in the team knows someone in Christchurch who has been affected, Otago coach Mike Hesson said.
"Thankfully, everyone [close to the team] seems to be accounted for," Hesson said.
Otago passed through Christchurch on the way to Napier yesterday and, although the team remained at the airport, Hesson said "it was pretty clear people had been through some horrific things".
"The airport was a pretty intense sort of a place.
We spent over an hour there waiting for our flight.
"Now that we are in Napier, we have to focus on the cricket.
It is pretty much all we can do."
Central Districts will be without three pacemen, Mitchell McClenaghan, Doug Bracewell and Adam Milne, who are all sidelined with injury.
In their absence, Ben Wheeler, Jeremy Kuru and Bevan Small will get an opportunity to impress.
The pitch is expected to be batsman-friendly so it could be hard work for the seamers.
Central has plenty of firepower to take advantage of the conditions, with the likes of Peter Ingram (418 runs at 52.25), Kruger van Wyk (266 at 66.50), Tim Weston (271 at 45.16) and Mathew Sinclair (242 at 40.33) all in good touch.
Otago captain Craig Cumming is fresh from back-to-back 100s in the drawn match with Canterbury in Queenstown last week.
He has now scored 19 first-class 100s for the province.
Neil Broom missed out in the last match but scored a double century earlier in the competition and struck back-to-back 100s in the one-day tournament.
Opener Aaron Redmond is out with a broken finger and promising youngster Michael Bracewell will take his spot.
Anthony Bullick replaces experienced seamer Warren McSkimming, and Sam Wells has aggravated a knee injury and may miss the rest of the season.
Mark Craig, who played six twenty/20 fixtures for Otago in 2008-09, has replaced Wells.
Bruce Martin is set to make his debut for Auckland against his former team-mates from Northern Districts in a fifth-round Plunket Shield four-day cricket match at Colin Maiden Park in Auckland starting tomorrow, NZPA reports.
In one three changes from Auckland's loss at Wellington last week, left-arm spinner Martin joins the 12 after putting together some impressive performances with both bat and ball for his club side, Parnell.
He played 89 first-class matches over 11 seasons for Northern Districts, taking 220 wickets, before trekking up State Highway 1 at the start of this season.
Gareth Hopkins returns to captain the side after the birth of his second child, while Daryl Tuffey comes in for Andre Adams, who is being rested.
Tuffey was rested in the previous game.
Auckland is now in the unenviable position of last on the points table but coach Paul Strang is confident it can start climbing the ladder.
"We may have lost the points in Wellington but the way we played down there was very encouraging.
We were forced to chase the game and if it wasn't for one partnership, we'd probably have taken it out."
