For cricketers used to winning half their games, Queenstown’s Southland Development Squad’s mostly mid-50s players have outdone themselves. On a recent 13-game tour comprising 10 games in England — mostly on lovely village grounds — and three in the Netherlands, they won eight matches. Player Jason Herron says they were still competitive in those other games, two going down to the last ball, except one, which was their 9th game in 11 days and third in a row in +35˚C heat. Losing their last 7 wickets for 19 runs, “the boys might have been a bit too keen for a cold beer or cider at the clubhouse bar”. Herron says everyone had their moment with the bat in hand, with quite a few scoring 50s and his son Angus hitting 102 not out in the Netherlands. “All our bowlers performed well, and we seemed to take more wickets than the opposition were expecting us to do.” They enjoyed lovely grounds in the Cotswolds and in the Netherlands, he says. However, at Sheepscombe Cricket Club’s ground the drop-off was so extreme long on and long off could not see the far-end batter — “we had to yell out to them if a ball was coming their way,” Herron says. Off the field, “all went well apart from getting lost a few times looking for grounds in England and half the team getting on the wrong train in Amsterdam”. “We were surprisingly injury-free — only one fractured thumb and a bad case of gout, but that didn’t stop them getting out on the field.” scoop@scene.co.nz
