The Wakatipu Cricket Exchange took place on March 2nd-3rd in Luggate and Queenstown.

On Sunday the 2nd of March the Columba First XI Cricket team got up early and travelled to Luggate to play our first game of our cricket exchange with Wakatipu High School. We spent our first day in Luggate playing one T20 match and one T10 game. In the T20, Wakatipu won the toss and elected to bat first. We managed to limit them to a total of 97/4. Wickets came from Matilda, Liv and Isla. It was then time to try and chase down the runs in very hot conditions. Openers Lexie and Emmi got us off to a great start, losing our first wicket of Lexie at 33/1. Next to be dismissed was Isla with the scoreboard at 70/2 after 9 overs. We managed to get the total after 12 overs to give us a win. Some top batting performances included Lexie and Isla (25) Emmi (16) and Liv (15). In the afternoon we had a T10 match, which was to give everyone a go and have a bit of fun. It was played in good spirits and everyone enjoyed themselves. After both games, we went to the Fairmaid's house for a team BBQ dinner and a swim after a long day travelling and playing cricket in the heat.

On Monday morning we woke to rain which wasn’t a good sign, luckily we were able to contact the coach of the Wakatipu team and the weather was all clear in Queenstown. We packed up everything and made our way to Queenstown, once arriving we got all of our gear and started to warm up. Wakatipu once again won the toss and elected to bowl, this meant we were batting first. With the same batting order Lexie and Emmi opened again and started off strong with both retiring. Isla then came out and carried on to have a successful innings scoring 39 (not out) with some nice boundaries. Scoring a total of 135/1 we had finished our batting innings. We moved onto bowling and were energetic in the field, doing star jumps to keep ourselves warm in the cold Queenstown weather. Wickets were shared throughout the team, with another great fielding performance, allowing us to take home another win. Some top bowling efforts included Lexie, bowling 2 overs, giving away only 1 run and taking 2 wickets. Emily also bowled well, bowling 2 overs for 7 runs and picking up a wicket.

Overall, it was a very successful exchange and will help us leading into Summer QUAD and Bates Cup. We would like to say a big thanks to Wakatipu High School Cricket for hosting us, Adam for coaching, Matt for driving the van, Paula for managing and taking a car, and the Fairmaid, Holland and Mactaggart families for having girls to stay. It was an awesome exchange and the first of hopefully many to come in the future with Wakatipu!