In spite of a fine third wicket stand by J. White (51) and B. Papps, North Otago failed to prevent an outright loss in its two-day Hawke Cup elimination representative cricket match against Ashburton, played at the Ashburton Domain Oval in perfect conditions on Friday and Saturday. Ashburton's fielding was much too consistent and the bowling much too accurate for the North Otago batsmen and the home team took the honours outright by eight wickets.

In reply to Ashburton's excellent first innings score of 264, North Otago were forced to follow on. Their second innings was much better at 205. At the end of the match Ashburton were two down for the required 58 runs they need to win.

North Otago appeared to recover slightly in its second innings and had 38 runs on the board before the loss of a wicket. However, a misunderstanding between opening batsman R. Paul and D. Malloch resulted in Paul being run out and likely partnership was lost.

The fortunes of North Otago were restored by a good third wicket stand by J. White (51) and B. Papps (35) who were the only batsmen at any time looked like mastering the Ashburton bowling attack. They took the score to 136 before White was caught by L. Moore of the tricky spin bowling of G. Wainscott.

With the exception of K. Ellis (20) and J. Brown (19), the remainder of the North Otago wickets fell fairly cheaply and the side was all out for 205 shortly before 5 p.m. This left Ashburton with more than an hour to score the necessary 58 runs for an outright win.

Bowling for Ashburton, G. Wainscott took five wickets for 39 and C. Price dismissed three batsmen for 49.

Ashburton began its second innings very confidently and by 5.45 p.m. had passed North Otago's score for the loss of the two opening batsmen, D. Smith (25) and Wainscott (49).

The most versatile of the visiting bowlers was K Ellis who had both batsmen stumped off his medium paced deliveries.

Short Scorecard(s)

Representative - Hawke Cup -

North Otago vs Ashburton County at Ashburton Domain Oval, Ashburton
North Otago 116 ( R. Paul 21, K. Ellis 17, J.S. White 14, W. Lee 12no, Millichamp 4-29, McCormick 3-45, Price 2-15 ) & 205 ( J.S. White 51, B.R. Papps 35, W.B. Kerr 25, K. Ellis 20, J.C. Brown 19, R. Paul 14, Wainscott 5-39, Price 3-40 )
Ashburton County 264 ( C. Price 143, G. Wainscott 35, R. Hortin 33, E.M. Flaherty 20, R. Paul 3-26, M.F. Sandri 3-66, K. Ellis 2-49 ) & 65-2 ( D. Smith 25, G. Wainscott 19, K. Ellis 2-19 )
Ashburton County won by 8 wickets
Full scorecard for the match