A miserable day of cold southerlies and frequent driving showers welcomed the Motueka Wekas to their first game at Loburn. In fact, if it had been a game against local opponents it is probable that not a ball would have been bowled. Be that as it may the match was played to a conclusion, although as a result of frequent interruptions, it was restricted to 36 avers per side. The difficulties of batting in marginal light and on a slippery pitch were more than compensated for by both sides, when in the field, ending up bowling with a ball almost as slippery as that bloody soap from Indonesia that Mike Dormer has been selling over the past year or so.

Motueka won the toss and elected to bat on a pitch which John Mitchell, from his positions (they varied) as a wicket keeper, considered would have been a belter if it weren’t for the rain. With the aid of stylish innings from several of Motueka’s promising young batsmen, D.Cederman, M.Henderson, B .Krammer and M.Fitzpatrick, Motueka got through to a very creditable 192. Don’t be surprised if you hear a lot more of these players in the years to come. Our bowling was steady without being dangerous – it certainly couldn’t have been described as being dry! We were also hampered by not being able to bowl our only genuine wrist spinner, John Doig, who had sprained his wrist the night before when lifting the building plans for his new house in Puriri Street.

Our reply was impressive and well paced. Although Gareth Brooks and Paul McEwan were dismissed relatively cheaply, fine aggressive batting by Neville Perkins, Hamish Anderson and Matt Hudson saw us through comfortably with only three wickets down and almost three overs still to be bowled.

The aftermatch function started well but was rather spoiled by the revelation that Mike Henderson, the manager of the visiting team, was Mike Dormer’s fag at Nelson College. It says much for Mike Henderson’s strength of character that he appears to have come through this experience relatively unharmed, although it was a little unnerving to the writer to see him washing down MED’s Mercedes during the change of innings.