Bidwell Cup cricket drops to new low

The Bidwell Cup senior men's inter-club cricket competition in Wairarapa reached new lows on Saturday with two of the three matches being won without a ball being bowled.
Rathkeale College defaulted to Greytown and the Academy XI did likewise to Red Star leaving only the Lansdowne v Wairarapa College match, up and running.
The Rathkeale default apparently was caused through the second day of the match clashing with their annual inter-school fixture with Christs College.
Meanwhile the Academy XI pulled the plug simply because of a shortage of playing numbers.
The situation left Wairarapa Cricket Association officials with a problem, how many points to award Greytown and Red Star, and inquiries yesterday suggested they would be given the same number of points as the winning team in the Lansdowne v Wairarapa College encounter.
It was Wairarapa College who surprisingly held the upper hand at the end of the first day's play in that game which had been transferred to an artificial surface.
The students batted first and got through to 174, thanks in the main to Cameron Stone (49 not out), Gareth Pottinger (31) and T.Butler (36).
Aaron Bidlake and Choi Jackson did most of the damage for Lansdowne, Bidlake taking 4-24 off 13.2 overs and Jackson 3-43 off 19 overs.
Lansdowne were struggling at 120-7 in their first innings when stumps were drawn, Jackson making 28, Bidlake 20 and Richard Fairbrother 22.