The annual Willows versus LNZCC match has in recent years developed into one of the ‘grudge’ matches on the annual calendar, made all the more interesting with Willows members spread across both teams. For one reason or another, this year’s match also involved a number of ringins on both teams, and unfortunately for The Willows, the London NZ ring-ins were better than ours on this occasion.

Winning the toss, The Willows elected to have a bowl on what looked like a track with a little bit of life in it, and for the first few overs it certainly did. However it got lower and slower as the day wore on, and chasing runs became difficult for a Willows batting line-up that failed to fire.

The Willows opening bowlers (Adrian McFedries and Hugo Davidson) started very well dismissing the dangerous McConnell and Scott relatively cheaply. When Singleton also went early we thought today might be our day. However, a couple of good partnerships from the LNZ middle order kept the runs coming with debutants Croker and Wallace putting on 41 and 31 respectively. LNZ finishing with a very competitive 193/7 from their 40 overs.

In response The Willows started well and at 56/2 we were in good shape. However, the LNZ slow bowlers settled into their work in the middle overs and runs dried up very quickly, with some very tidy figures produced by Kelvin Scott (2/17 from eight) and Croker (3/17 from four). The Willows ended with a bit of a late flourish that made the scoreboard a little more respectable, including a quick fire 26 from Hugo Davidson, including two big sixes. However, it was all in vain and we finished some 40 runs behind, not batting our 40 overs.

Thanks to Winsome Dormer for hosting us post match, we look forward to doing it all again next year.