The Willows eleven gathered on a gloomy morning to introduce themselves before battle commenced with the London NZ selection. Our Commander in Chief again bluntly explained the importance of this fixture which initially looked to be a forlorn prospect given that The Willows side had lost both an opening bowler and captain from last year’s fixture. The opposition on the other hand contained a hardened and experienced line-up ranging from dentists to former All Blacks. Our young skipper Greig Pullar realised that we had exactly five bowlers and six batsmen so promptly won the toss and asked LNZ to field.

Losing our Skipper early did nothing for our collective confidence but we then witnessed a sublime top order batting display. Maulik Patel stroked the ball with exquisite timing, Justin Murray fresh from meetings in Argentina, shrugged off his jet lag to craft a highly polished 68, while Ben Yock continued to prove why he graced The Willows calendar this year by driving, pulling and cutting his way to 74. Chris Kennedy was the pick of the LNZ bowlers claiming 4 wickets of excellent off-spin. The Willows staggered to make 258 at the end of the 49th over.

Defending 259 The Willows could ill afford a repeat of last year’s opening bowling debacle. Thankfully some young blood in the form of Adam Hastilow completed his opening over with no extras and on time so that The Willows could set about their work with renewed confidence. After a couple of early wickets the game was nicely poised for a close finish until young Peter Younghusband was introduced to the bowling crease. After settling in for two overs (costing 19) he then took 5/11 off the next 8 overs bowling his leg-spin with considerable maturity, skill and cunning. The game was effectively over by the time that he had taken his fifth wicket but you cannot keep a champion out of a game for too long and the tail was duly polished off by Brendan Fahey who delighted in perplexing Leon MacDonald with the slowest ball of the day.

A large win for The Willows didn’t distract from the enjoyment of a keenly contested days cricket. The Trevor Campbell trophy is safely secured for another year.