Wellington's Onslow Cricket Club attracts a level of devotion among its older members that must be the envy of 90 per cent of cricket clubs around New Zealand and one of its most devoted Bruce Heather achieved a notable milestone at the weekend.

Heather, who has played for the club for 40 years, took his wicket haul for the club to 1389 on Saturday, beating the record of 1387 that was set by an old club-mate Peter Ameye in the 1960s and 1970s.

Heather took 5-26 from his eight over spell as Onslow beat Karori in a fourth A grade game. However, he believes former international Gavin Larsen contributed to him getting the record.

"I wasn't expecting to get the record on Saturday. Gavin was playing in our team and I got given the ball before him. When he came on he gave a good impersonation of someone not trying to get a wicket," Heather said.

Bowling what he described as slow-medium and trying to get a bit of out-swing, Heather said the team had been hammered the week before and was playing in a grade of quite a good standard.

"The players are younger, and most of them are out of 1st and 2nd XIs from schools," he said.

The Onslow side had taken part in the President's Grade in recent years but there were not enough teams to support it this summer so they had to go in a more competitive grade.

"There are not enough older players playing the game now. I think too many guys give up cricket too early.

"All you have to do is keep in reasonable shape, get out before the start of the season and do some work," he said.

Heather's style is to get a bucket of balls, go down to the park and gradually build up to bowling 10 overs.

"I also do a lot of walking as a matter of course," he said.

Onslow has a solid band of older players, who have been very prolific. Dennis Lander had scored 13,000 runs for the club while former Wellington representative Andy Wilson still played a few games and he had more than 10,000 runs. Bruce Niven and Graeme Scott were other more senior players in the side.

"I really enjoy the sport. Cricket is my favourite and somehow I have managed to escape injury. Probably, I haven't had more than five or six days off from cricket with injuries in my career.

"I'll keep on playing," he said. "It's a season by season thing. I'm not the oldest playing. Derek Alabaster is 68 and plays for Wellington Collegians while Brian Wilkins is 70-plus and he still plays the odd game for us."

"Eddie Tonks and Paul Neale were two who played cricket into their 50s," he said.

Originally, Heather only played cricket as a fill-in between rugby seasons. But he found he enjoyed cricket more than rugby.

He was in the Onslow senior team which was relegated from the premier competition in the mid-1960s and went down a grade and stayed there for four years before coming back up. At that time Jeremy Coney was in the side, John Morrison joined soon after and when the strength was back up, Heather dropped down to the lower grades.

"I've been all over the shop, I've played for every grade going," he said.

He's also served the club administratively serving in most positions on the committee and is now on the Onslow Cricket Foundation which administers a fund for youth cricketers.

Another factor in players continuing on was the way records are maintained in the club.

"The club has always kept records, they're all computerised so if someone is heading for a milestone it is known.

"Everyone who has played for the club is recorded but most clubs don't do that. But I think that has kept the club together, especially in the lower grades," he said.

© CricInfo