The NZC Domestic season this year coincides with significant birthdays for two of the six Major Associations contesting the suite of five major national trophies.
The Wellington Cricket Association was formed just before the 1875/76 season, putting 150 candles on the capital's cricketing cake.
And Central Districts Cricket Association is celebrating its 75th Jubilee this summer (previously, the best North Island-based players from the region used to seek to play for Wellington and before that, Hawke’s Bay or Taranaki, when those provinces had first-class status in the 1800s, Hawke's Bay until 1921).
Circled on the calendar, 1 December marks the day the Central Stags played their first match, at the Cello Basin Reserve, in the 1950/51 Plunket Shield. The Association has official jubilee celebrations planned in January for players and public.
Ian Leggat, along with his 10 teammates, made his CD debut that day at the Basin.
Leggat is a one-Test BLACKCAP and a Nelson Hawke Cup legend whose records in the provincial challenge competition would seem unlikely to ever be beaten.
Ian Leggat presented then-Test captain Tim Southee with the 2023/24 Tangiwai Shield | PHOTOSPORT
He also still holds the enduring New Zealand ninth wicket first-class partnership record of 239, set with the late BLACKCAP and Stag from Whanganui, Harry Cave, in Dunedin, in January 1953 in the Plunket Shield — which is celebrating a milestone of its own this summer, with the 100th season of Domestic first-class competition.
Now 95, Leggat was one of two youngsters in that inaugural 1950 team, and remembers it was a cold, miserable day at the Basin, with the covers oddly having been left off the night before — perhaps because of the wind.
“The weather was horrible, and I didn’t get any runs, and that was horrible, too.”
His captain, Stags cap number one, was Palmerston North lawyer Joe Ongley — later Sir Joseph Ongley and a Supreme Court judge.
Ongley’s father Arthur had worked for years to convince the national council of the time that the ‘provinces’ could form their own first-class association, son Joe later taking up the same cause.
The Central Districts Cricket Association was officially formed in August 1950 in Palmerston North, while Wellington’s birth was at a meeting in a since-demolished pub on Customhouse Quay.
Interested gentlemen were invited to attend to discuss the formation of a Wellington association and “the improvement of the Cricket Ground” — bear in mind that it would take more than another century before men's and women's cricket merged into the unified administration structure of today.
The first game of cricket had been played on the Basin Reserve in 1868, but there had been complaints that the rough ground was dotted with stones and thistles, with players injured.
A far cry from the famous ground's velvet turf today.
Wellington is technically the oldest extant first-class cricket Association in New Zealand.
Otago and Canterbury meanwhile played their first first-class match under those regional monikers in January 1864, in the 1863/64 season at the South Dunedin Rec — a ground that was used in Dunedin until 1878.
Auckland was not so big and bustling as other places in those gold rush days, and arrived on the scene a full 10 years later, making its first-class debut in November 1873 at the old Hagley Oval.
But there is an important distinction for these history-laden sides between "first match" and the formal founding of the first-class associations.
The Otago Cricket Association was founded in 1876 — its 150th birthday coming up later next year. That was more than a dozen years after its first match against Canterbury.
The Wellington Cricket Association (now Cricket Wellington) was formed OTD 150 years ago “for the purpose of providing a ground for the use of the clubs forming the Association, for the management of provincial and intercolonial matches, and the advancement of cricket generally.”
— Francis Payne (@FPayne100) October 22, 2025
New Zealand Cricket statistician and 2025 Bert Sutcliffe Medal recipient Francis Payne raises an interesting question that arises from the early days of the original “big four” — Wellington, Auckland, Canterbury and Otago.
Matches played in the name of those four centres are now regarded as first-class, “[so] should player numbers begin from the actual first game, or from when the Association was formed?”
The Central Districts and Northern Districts Cricket Associations, both formed in the 1950s, don’t have that dilemma to contemplate, as the Plunket Shield had literally been contested for decades before they came along.
Northern was the last modern Major Association to come into being, taking its cue from Central as a provincially-based "Districts" model and calving off from Auckland in Northern Districts in time to join the Plunket Shield competition for the 1956/57 season.
ND's first game began on Christmas Day 1956 - Christmas Day cricket was a thing even into the 1970s, in New Zealand.
Pace bowler Dave Hoskin bowled the first delivery for ND with a ball that’s still proudly conserved at ND’s HQ in Hamilton; Hoskin recently celebrated his 90th birthday and, like his friend Leggat, still keenly follows the Domestic and international game today.
Dave Hoskin served as President of New Zealand Cricket from 2000 to 2003 | PHOTOSPORT
This season’s Plunket Shield will begin tomorrow on 18 November in Wellington (the Basin), Rangiora and Palmerston North — two of those quite fitting locations for Associations remembering the toils of their forebears to get their proud traditions up and running.
Full Plunket Shield Schedule HERE
• The Round 6 Central Stags-Northern Districts match has been shifted to start on Saturday 7 March 2026, two days earlier than originally announced.
• Livescores and free livestreams at NZC.nz and on NZC YouTube
ROUND ONE SQUAD ANNOUNCEMENTS
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