Welcome Nelson College, the Alma Mater of our great leader. Hard and fast conditions were the order of the day and I had no hesitancy in invoking our time honoured tradition of batting first.

Liam Foulkes who is an immaculately presented cricketer anchored our innings with a brilliant 96. He was particularly harsh on anything short and wide. Together with the skipper (looking more and more like George Clooney these days -Ed.) they put on a snappy hundred run partnership. It was left to Andrew Nuttall and Ben Williams to take us through to a competitive total. In doing so Andrew achieved the unique milestone of 1,000 runs and 200 wickets. Logan Andrews was the pick of the Nelson bowlers with 3/26.

The Willows bowling attack was a mix of youth, senior pros and over-60s greatness. Adam Hastilow took a wicket first ball of the innings and nothing went right thereafter for the visitors. Kelvin Scott was miserly and Dave Wakefield provided the flair to have Nelson all out for 135. The only resistance came from Rowan Restieaux.

My message never changes; any team that is prepared to do the hard yards and become a good reliable catching team has no limits to what they can achieve.