The day started cold, almost still, and with threatening clouds right around the Willows ground. Wanganui Collegiate were completing fielding and pre-match drills with an ominous efficiency as the Willows’ players arrived.

Collegiate won the toss and elected to bat. it was fair to say, however, that they made a shaky start with 2 wickets falling for only 7 runs. Both wickets were taken by Matthew Fielding who bowled well in his opening spell achieving both swing and movement from the pitch. The young Wanganui opener Sean Lance together with number 4 batsman then set about resurrecting the Collegiate innings. They batted very well against some tight Willows’ bowling and became the backbone of the Collegiate innings. Lance ended up with a solid 60 runs and White went through to 70. Scoring was reasonably slow and the Willows suffered an inability to take a number of catching chances offered . Runs remained hard to come

by due to testing spells of bowling from Willows left arm spinners Richard Abbott and the ever economical Andrew Nuttall. Nuttall bowled first change and then the final 5 avers of the innings to return excellent figures of 3 for 1 8 from his 1 0 avers. Collegiate finished their innings having scored 1 70 for 6 which did not appear an unduly daunting total particularly on a pitch that came up to the usual excellent standard for batting and provided good pace at this time of the season.

The Willows set about the run chase positively with the run rate well and truly at or above the• required rate. Unfortunately the wickets were falling regularly with Collegiate’s bowlers using the conditions well. There were a number of batsmen that got starts but did not carry on. Gareth Brooks looked assured opening the innings but was out at 20. Jeremy Kench came in at number 5 and struck the ball very well including a towering 6 over the bowler’s head. Unfortunately he was also out having scored 22 runs off 25 balls. Matthew Fielding contributed again at number 7 scoring 27 runs and deserved his player of the day award for the Willows team. The run chase was still on when Darin Cusack came to the crease having re-engineered the batting line up to mysteriously come in at number 9. Unfortunately it was not to be our day with Cusack the last out on 27 with the Willows score at 158 and an over or so still to play.

The Collegiate bowlers shared wickets around with the 2 openers Castle and Brydon returning identical figures of 2 for 30, White chimed in with 2 for 1 9 from 8 avers and the remaining bowlers taking 1 wicket each. The Wanganui team impressed in the field in that they took some difficult catches, were aggressive in their ground fielding and deserved their victory.