After a wet week in Christchurch it was a very green looking pitch and outfield that greeted us for our first game of the season against King’s HS from Dunedin. Recent history suggested they would field a strong side, having won three of the last four encounters. This proved to be the case.

We won the toss and against normal protocol decided to field. The skip was confident the right decision was made. With a couple of useful quicks, three quality spinners and very good allrounders what could possibly go wrong? To start with, nothing at all, as young Nawid picked up two wickets in consecutive balls in his third over to have King’s rocking at 7/2. After nine overs Adrian McFedries came on and bowled what should have been a match winning spell only to see four chances go begging in his first 3 overs—how much bad luck could one player have in a day? As a result of these let-offs, a very useful third wicket partnership developed between Marno Potgieter and their captain Beckham Wheeler-Greenall putting on 79 runs. Beckham carried on with several other useful partnerships, growing ever more confident as his innings progressed and finished retiring for a well-compiled 104.

As the scoring rate accelerated at the back end of their innings, King’s eventually posted a very competitive 201 off their 50 overs. A challenge for sure; but if we too could build some good partnerships then I thought we had the talent to get at least close to the target. However that was not the case. King’s held on to their catches and we were reduced to 63/6. Adrian’s unfortunate day was capped off when he smashed a full toss only to be caught for a duck. Some useful rearguard contributions from Jeremy, Andrew and Nigel gave the scorecard some respectability but in the end we were 56 runs shy, and well beaten. It was a polished performance by the King’s High School side.