It was our pleasure to host the Hong Kong Cricket Club, established in 1851 and the oldest cricket club in Asia, on their inaugural visit to The Willows and first New Zealand tour. The match was held in glorious sunshine two days after the ICC Cricket World Cup commenced at Hagley Oval with the match between the Black Caps and Sri Lanka. Unfortunately, we were unable to emulate the Black Caps and capitulated rather meekly to a well-coached and organised Hong Kong team.

For the record, we batted first and after a relatively promising start were bowled out for 191 in the 39th over, a good 40 runs short. A last minute call-up, Phil Dickson, showed his class with a mixture of aggression and smart running between the wickets for a well compiled 72. Phil was well supported by Kelvin Scott (31) and Ben Laughton (30) and a late quick cameo of 14 from Stu Dickson. Nobody else really troubled the scorers.

To be fair, Hong Kong bowled well. Simon Cook, their coach and former Middlesex pro appeared unplayable (well, according to our openers) beating the bat consistently and was unlucky not to take any wickets from a miserly 5 over opening spell conceding just 7 runs. Anton Bunton, Max Smith, Isaac Poole and Tim Andrews shared the wickets with a good all round display.

Unfortunately our bowlers struggled to make any major in-roads and Hong Kong achieved their winning runs in 35 overs (with just 3 down) to secure their first win of the tour. Andrew Nuttall and Carlos McGillivray endeavoured to stem the run flow but disciplined and fluent batting from Cameron McAuslan (on loan from Otago BHS) and Dave Varley meant The Willows never really got a look in.

The game was played in great spirit and thank you to Elliot Andrews, the Hong Kong skipper, for suggesting they play a game at The Willows.

After a very entertaining fine session and following several ports, it was agreed a Willows team should visit Hong Kong in 2016. We await The Willows “inner circle” approval before commencing planning.