KEY POINTS:
The wicketkeeping merry-go-round gathered pace today.
Otago have lured promising Auckland and national age-group rep Derek de Boorder south.
The 21-year-old, who went on a New Zealand 'A' tour two years ago, had his hand somewhat forced by a convoluted set of circumstances that would almost certainly have seen his work this summer restricted to club cricket had he not moved.
Two weeks ago Brendon McCullum announced he was moving back to his his home province of Otago after a brief career secondment in Canterbury, a move Otago chief executive Ross Dykes admitted "had upsides and downsides".
The upside is the profile and wealth of experience he brings to a region that has been light on national representatives of late. The down side is that he will rarely be available for Otago due to Black caps duties and in the process they lost a high-achieving, consistently available keeper.
Gareth Hopkins, added to the New Zealand Cricket central contracts list this year, was then forced to look elsewhere to play his cricket and his eyes turned north to Auckland, where his wife is based.
That meant that de Boorder, who many count as unlucky not to have played more for Auckland, found his first-class dream slipping further away.
