Order of Play is

Au1 to Au6 and NZ1 to NZ6 represent the singles players in order of merit (as per Reg 9).  AuD1 to AuD3 and NZD1 to NZD3 represent the doubles pairings without reference to an order of merit. Team orders are to be announced by captains by 4.30pm on Thursday 5^thAugust.  I will post that as soon as possible.

On the singles days, the order of the matches is at the manager’s discretion.   4 matches will start at 10.00 am and the other 2 matches will follow on as lawns become available.

Play starts at 10.00am each day.

Preparing for the flag raising at Heaton Park one hour before start of play.

The opening ceremony, after the captains had raised their flags.

When I left the club, the players were busy practising their hitting, and Paul Rigge and his maintenance team were readying themselves for tomorrow.

For fellow lawnmower geeks, the club has two Dennis FT610 mowers (£4,000 each), which were being operated in tandem.  They've been cutting to a height of 4mm during the season, and have just dropped the blades to 3mm.  Apparently, they took the cut height down even further this morning, to 2mm.  Normally, that would carve off the top layer of soil, but it seem to be leaving the ground intact, so I think we'll see some very very short grass over the next four days.

The club also has the coolest piece of groundsman's kit - a vibroroller.  I've not seen one of these before : it has three long rollers (about 6ft) with a guy on top, sitting on a platform.  The whole thing rolls the grass by moving crabwise across the surface dead fast.  At the same time, everything vibrates and compacts the surface.

Meanwhile, Paul's doing the manual stuff, by shifting the hoops sideways a yard.  They can do this because the Heaton Park boundaries are string rather than paint.  So each of the lawns can be picked up - hoops, peg and boundary - and moved around at will.

Had we been here a fortnight ago, the lawns were running at about 17 Plummers.  After a day's growth and some rain, the latest measurement is 13.5.  If the weather improves over the next few days, the speed should be much more interesting by the time we reach the singles games.

Good morning: its Saturday morning here, the start of the second day. 

The Australian team have just arrived, and placed their mascot Eddie (the Hunter) next to my commentary table.  I have Tony Hall and Dave Walters refereeing here today, so hope to be able to cover at least some of the matches.  Having the referees in white makes a good contrast to the team colours of green and black.

Paul Rigge, having set the hoops this morning, measured lawn 1 at 13 seconds this morning, despite the intermittant drizzle.

The New Zealand team have now just pulled in, so practice should start shortly.  I will grab a coffee!

Kiwi has now joined Eddie, both looking out of the window.  The draw for lawns has just taken place.

End of the 2nd day: play finished about 4pm.  Lawn 1 is being mowed, both teams practicing on 4 in late sunshine. 

There were about two dozen spectators today, half of them Australian.  The Chairman of Council, Patricia Duke-Cox, looked in having given some players from her club a lift up to Coranation Park (the Bury club's normal home) for the Golden Mallet competition.  I wonder which players had more fun?

NZ were again ahead on the day, with one 2-0 win, the other two matches being shared, both going to 3 games.  There were 5 triple peels in the 8 games, but the only whitewash was Dumerge's 5th turn triple after Fletcher had gone round in the 3rd turn.

NZ are also celebrating a 20-10 win over the Wallabies in the Tri-Nations (Rugby Union).

Singles tomorrow: I'm off to Bowdon, but hope that James Hawkins will be here again to commentate.  A draw has been done for lawns and Bumergue v Skinley and Clarke v Bryant, the reverse singles between players 3 and 4, get the late starts, waiting for matches to finish.