After winning the toss and choosing to bat on a rock hard, fresh wicket, the Wellington College boys set off at a quick rate of knots with their two openers, Sam Brandwood and B Patel facing off the opening bowlers comfortably.

With noticeably quick running between the wickets, and their ability to punish the bad ball, the Wellington boys were going strong at 175/3 before some great pace bowling by Wellington College Old Boy, Trevor Garrett and Sam Noster restricted the Wellington ensemble to 261/8.

The highlight of the innings was watching young Sam Brandwood, who led from the front and scored 94. Although six short of his century, he impressed everyone with his composure and maturity at the crease.

In reply, The Willows got off to a solid start with the top four putting on 110. However with the following six batsmen only adding 8 runs between them, The Willows scraped together a final score of 126. This was down to an incredible spell of spin bowling from B Patel who finished with figures of 4/3 off seven overs. If only we had listened to Mr Dormer when he told us to “keep the ball on the ground, play in the ‘V’, and for heavens sake, no Mickey Mouse cricket...!”

It was a special day playing for the Brian Hastings Trophy, and we were extremely lucky to have the man himself join us for part of the day. It was, however, a little bit disappointing having to hand the trophy over to the Wellington College side, but they really did deserve it!