New Zealand's Harps Tahurangi in play on the final day of round two

On the final day of the second test, NZ were playing for pride, due to Australia reaching the magic number of 11 match wins Thursday. Going into the day Australia held a lead of 11-4, so our job was to make the scoreline a bit more respectable.

The match-ups today were:
- Aiken vs Simon Hockey
- Harps vs Stephen Forster
- Chris vs Greg Fletcher
- Paddy vs Robert Fletcher

...and the late starts were Joe vs Ian Dumergue and Jenny vs Malcolm Fletcher.

Australia once again got off to a fast start, having all the early play on all the lawns.
Simon took the first game against Aiken with a nice TP. However, Aiken hit back with a TP of his own (including a 3rd turn ball round), and then a 6th turn TP in the decider to take the match.

Harps had an interactive match with Stephen, with a few errors from both players, but Stephen always seemed to have the upper hand, eventually taking the match 2-0.

The first 25 points of the Greg vs Chris match were all scored by Greg, until an unlucky "grievous" (rushing a ball onto the peg) at the end of Greg's TP in game 1 let Chris into the game. Chris scored the next 26 points to take the game by 1 point. In the second game, Chris had a tidy 6th turn delayed TP.

Chris Shilling (Click to Zoom)Turns 3 and 4 of Paddy vs Robert were both misses, and Paddy had the first opportunity with a 7 yarder on turn 5, but missed this too, giving Robert the first break. The lift was also missed, meaning Robert took a 1-0 lead. In the second, Robert hit 3rd turn and went to 4-back, Paddy hit 4th turn and also went to 4b (with 2 pops) and Robert hit 5th turn and finished the game, taking a 2-0 win.

Joe and Ian were banished to lawn 7 (the furthest tennis court with very little shade) for their late-starting match. Joe found some very good form to take the match with two tidy TPs. The first game included an unfortunate error from Ian whereby he ran H5 twice during his turn, gifting Joe the innings.

Jenny and Malcolm had a TP-fest (two by Malcolm and one by Jenny). Both players looked very comfortable when they had the innings, and there was a fair bit of hitting in, but Malcolm eventually took a 2-1 victory.

I think it is fair to say that all the players are looking forward to tomorrow's rest day. It is very tiring playing 15 days of croquet in such extreme heat, so we will now recuperate and come out firing against the English.