A rare delayed start greeted us at Jaguar Oval, as overnight rain and a bit of dew on a rather lush outfield held us up. The wicket looked fantastic from the pavilion. A closer look would have shown it to be tacky due to the rain.

The Timaru boys looked in fine form in the warm up; they won the toss and graciously invited The Willows to bat. We had a strong eleven and as a debut skipper felt confident in sending Harry Fitzgerald and Matt House to open. An English flavour of four imports graced The Willows with their presence and formed the basis of the middle to lower order. After a flying start from the openers, The Willows were rollicking along until Harry fell, quickly followed by Matt who made a rather attacking 26. With a mini collapse orchestrated by Timaru’s leg spinner (J Copeland) who managed to snag four quality wickets, this was backed by some tight bowling from the other end and The Willows were under pressure to post a respectable total. Enter Callum Curnow who managed to blast his way to an entertaining 32 and carry us to a defendable score of 184.

The Willows opened with their trump cards of Callum Curnow and Dan Vedder who kept things tight and managed to pick up a couple of early wickets. With the introduction of spin we further stifled the Timaru run rate. We brought on young 15 year old Merrick Bungard who bowled an impressive spell of 3 for 17. This swung the match to The Willows favour. Whilst I wasn’t “counting my chickens” and thinking of an early finish, the two Timaru tyros of J Copeland and ‘keeper W Sharp had other ideas. Their counter-punch partnership of 52 runs certainly had the skipper worried. After some nervous moments we finally managed to break the partnership and breathed easier as it was getting a little close at the end.

Well played by the Timaru Boys’ High School. They looked a very competitive side. Jim was rather happy that we got one over his old boys. The English “imports” were rather emotional as they found the experience just like home and, young Merrick Bungard took home the distinct pleasure of “player of the day” on his debut.