The Ashes, World Cup Finals, Canterbury/Auckland rugby matches, fierce, yes, important, perhaps, but they pale in comparison. Once a year and this year for the last time, on February 23rd, the great sporting prize, the Diana Trophy goes up for stake.

The venue, Flaxton‘s home ground, nestled conveniently on John Gardner’s front lawn. The prize, the Diana Trophy and bragging rights in perpetuity.

A pre match phone call to the opposing skipper John Gardner, was met with the response “you will have to call back, he is talking to his cricket pitch at the moment”.

No doubt the monologue went along the lines “come on old girl, you’ve got one more big one in you. PIay up and you are back to being a sheep paddock next week. We are not letting The Willows take the trophy up the road”.

Flaxton won the toss and decided to bowl. A number of useful contributions allowed The Wilows to compile 234 from its 40 overs — Graeme Inglis (40 retired), Phil Harris (38), Greg McCarthy (37) and Pierre Flavell (38), a Willows guest for the day.

The Flaxton bowlers did an excellent job, containing The Willows side on shortish boundaries, with Bob Masefield’s “wrong-un” making an all to rare an appearance. Bob finished with the excellent figures of 3/29 bowling his leg spinners with guile and competitiveness.

The run chase started well for Flaxton, with the seemingly ageless Derek Banks scoring an attractive 40. James Patterson chimed in with a well struck 28 and Don Parsons struck 38 valuable runs in the middle order. As often is the way during a run chase, wickets fell at the wrong time for Flaxton.

Wily medium pacers Graeme Inglis, Phil Harris and surprise package Peter Devlin chipped in with wickets. Graeme Inglis took a magnificent running catch to dismiss Bob Masefield, which in reality tipped the match The Willows way.

The beauty of this fixture over the years has been the edge and meaning that the match has had. The Willows on a number of occasions have tried, but ultimately failed to secure the coveted Diana Trophy, a fact that the author, also The Willows ‘keeper, and John Gardner were pondering while we were waiting for one of Wal Scott’s off spinners to arrive, hoping it would make it during the same over that he let it go in. Wal had the last laugh, bowling John for 3.

In the end the victory was comfortable enough for The Willows. More importantly the match illustrated exactly why cricket is such a great game and always will be. It gave us the opportunity to compete for something that mattered, it provided entertainment and above all a spirit of friendship that will endure.