Eric Tindill celebrated his 90th birthday a few days ago and had further cause for celebration today when the Wellington Living Legends cricket team was named.

Wellington, New Zealand's oldest cricket association, is celebrating 125 years of operation this summer and has an extensive programme of events organised, culminating in a dinner in March during Wellington's international three-day game with Pakistan.

The Living Legends side was selected by Wellington cricket identities, Mike Curtis, John Gibson QC and Bruce Morrison.

Its announcement today was preceded by a public selection.

The Legends team announced today was: Bruce Edgar, Robert Vance, Andrew Jones, Barry Sinclair, John Reid (captain), Evan Gray, Bruce Taylor, Eric Tindill, Richard Collinge, Ewen Chatfield, Bob Blair.

In the public choice, Bruce Murray was preferred to Vance, Jeremy Coney was preferred to Barry Sinclair and Frank Mooney was preferred to Tindill.

The exclusion of Coney was one surprise, although the man named ahead of him Sinclair, had a better record for the province. Both were New Zealand captains.

Sinclair in 68 games for the province scored 3583 runs at 35.12 while in 74 games Coney scored 3251 runs at 30.96.

The Tindill-Mooney contest was an interesting one as they were often in competition during their career. Tindill, a 1937 tourist to England with New Zealand, and kept in the home Tests against Australia in 1945/46 and England in 1946/47.

But when it came time for the selection for the 1949 tour of England, Mooney was preferred. Mooney was also wicket-keeper on the 1953/54 tour of South Africa.

The selectors also preferred Robert Vance to Bruce Murray for one of the opening positions.Vance played 119 games for Wellington and is the second highest run scorer for the province with 6440 runs at 34.43.

Murray played 64 times for the province and scored 3753 runs at 35.07.

Both played for New Zealand. Murray in 13 Tests and Vance in four.

The players were presented to the crowd during the break between innings at the National Bank series one-day international at WestpacTrust Stadium today.

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