Following a very pleasant dinner held at Medbury School on the Saturday evening in the presence of The Rt Hon Sir Anand Satyanand and Lady Susan Satyanand, both teams arrived at the game eager to show off their wares.

At 11.00am Erv McSweeney, the captain of the New Zealand XI, elected to field and requested Geoff Allott and Michael Owens to use the new ball. An excellent opening partnership of 70 runs between Ben Ward (St Andrew’s College) and Mike Collins (Otago Boys’ High School) was terminated by the evergreen Ewen Chatfield who fired up with a second wicket having Collins well stumped by the veteran Lee Germon.

Andrew McCracken who performed magnificently as MC the night before, and the captain Robert Dunne, accumulated runs which resulted in the Youth XI finishing at 223/9.

The middle order of the Youth XI was demolished by Andrew Nuttall using his guile and skill with his left arm assortments.

Chasing the Youth XI’s total, Brad Doody opened aggressively with four boundaries but through excellent bowling by Hamish Cooke (Gore High School), it was left to Erv McSweeney who batted so well and Paul Wiseman of Canterbury Cricket, to record what was a disappointing total of 150.

Apart from the first 12 overs of pace, the balance of the Youth XI bowling was undertaken by the spinners Lachie Davidson (Christchurch Boys’ High School), Alex Marshall (St Andrew’s College) and Ed Close (Christ’s College).

The win gave the Youth XI playing on behalf of the Governor-General a 3-1 lead over a composite past New Zealand XI. An excellent day’s cricket watched attentively by the Governor-General and a good number of spectators.