Some telling reminders of what playing cricket can do for people, and what people can do in order to play cricket, were issued at last night's 125th jubilee celebrations of Cricket Wellington.

Past players and administrators gathered at New Zealand's Parliament House for a special dinner and speeches by past players.

Former international opening batsman Bruce 'Bags' Murray who spoke about playing in the 1960s provided a poignant reminder of how cricket had helped him.

"I will be grateful forever for the number of opportunities provided for me by the Wellington Cricket Association that would not otherwise have come my way.

"My first flight on a plane, a DC3 to New Plymouth, my first stay in a hotel, my first visit to Dunedin and Invercargill. I met my first politician Jack Marshall, who was mad on cricket, my first Governor General Lord Cobham who was also mad on cricket.

"These were all extras that were helpful and education to a young man whose family were of, as they used to describe it, 'limited means'".

The camaraderie of the Wellington teams he played in, the primitive circumstances they prepared in compared to the modern regime were special.

"It was all pretty orderly and basic, but we loved it. We were all very much volunteers who enjoyed it," he said.

Former New Zealand women's captain Trish McKelvey, speaking on behalf of the province's women cricketers provided a timely reminder of how hard it had been for women players to play their cricket.

"It was a do-it-yourself culture. We did the administration of our game as players, whether for Wellington or New Zealand. We did the fund-raising," she said.

McKelvey said the Wellington women's specialty fund-raising had been collecting phone books and doing catering.

Because the women's national championship, the Hallyburton Johnston Shield always started on December 27, Christmas Day was invariably spent travelling to the venue, by car in the North Island, and by interisland ferry and car in the South Island.

Christmas dinner came out of hampers prepared beforehand and eaten along the way.

McKelvey also mentioned two great male stalwarts of the game in Wellington who had been especially helpful for women's cricket, Trevor Rigby and the late Dave Grey.

Former New Zealand captain Geoff Rabone, who played his cricket in Wellington before moving to Auckland spoke of his early years in the game and the support given young players by Les Brabin, who presented the Brabin Trophy for the annual age-group tournament between Auckland, Wellington, Canterbury and Otago, and the Brabin Cup for competition between Auckland and Wellington.

He talked of the expedition it was in the 1930s and 1940s to travel to Otago to play a four-day game.

"We left on the overnight ferry and played a four-day game in Christchurch, then caught the train to Dunedin and played four more days.

"Now I'm a member of the gin and tonic club in Auckland and can talk about things like how we always got behind the ball, we never got caught on the line, we always played back or forward, in the field every throw was over the top of the stumps and we always bowled the ball in the right channels and we never let the batsman free his arms."

Another former New Zealand captain John Reid, now an International Cricket Council match referee, talked about great characters of the game in Wellington's past like C S "Stewie" Dempster, Joe Ongley and Hugh Duncan, Eric Tindill and Fred "Poison Pen" Boshier, the Evening Post cricket writer and sports editor of the time.

"There are many names to conjure with, Bob Blair, who was a great Wellington bowler, but a bully. He had the pace of Sean Pollock or Jacques Kallis and took five wickets in an innings 25 times.

"Bob Vance was the best cricketer never to play for New Zealand. John Beck was an inspiration to us all with his fielding while Harry Cave was a gentle giant and how we miss him," he said.

Reid recalled that with the club play at the time it was possible to go three weeks without a bat, if the top order of a side scored well on the first day of a game, then declared, and then bowled the opposition out twice on the second day, and then had to field first on the first day of the next game.

He also recalled having to go to Dunedin to play England and face the pace of Frank Tyson on a diet of club cricket.

"Needless to say my off stump was cartwheeling out of the ground before I got my bat into position to play him," he said.

John Morrison talked of times in the 1970s and recalled how he took part in one of the great partnerships of domestic cricket and never scored a run. He had been out for a duck and was asked to act as a runner for Bruce Taylor who scored 173 while Jeremy Coney scored 92, and Morrison had had to do all the running.

Evan Gray, another international talked about how the strength that developed in Wellington in the 1980s was started by a what seemed like a Wellington Schoolboys XI with himself, and Robert Vance and Bruce Edgar and other young players lining up to play the Australian World XI at the Basin Reserve in 1977.

The side had got close to winning the game and gained an early appreciation of what was possible.

Gray also owned up to the fact that the famous 77-run over bowled by Vance at Lancaster Park in Christchurch in 1989/90 had been his idea and not that of the captain of the time Erv McSweeney.

McSweeney himself capped off the night, after Greg McKenzie and Matthew Bell spoke on behalf of more recent cricketers, by highlighting the bond that exists between former Wellington cricketers as being similar to that enjoyed by the All Black fraternity.

Now as chief executive of the game in Wellington he was presiding over an association that had the best indoor training facility in the country, a young and talented first men's team and a revered cricket ground in the Basin Reserve. There was young talent coming through in the lower grades.

Cricket, like all other sports in New Zealand, was being squeezed by the juggernaut that was rugby and McSweeney asked that the calibre represented in the room not be lost to the game but for players to get involved with Cricket Wellington.

"Our business is rescuing the game, please come forward and help," he said.

© CricInfo