ABSTRACT
Despite the varied contributions of systematic colonisation, the military, gold discoveries and pastoralism to the formative years of New Zealand cricket, the game functioned within fairly narrow parameters. The only real continuity throughout the nineteenth century, and arguably well into the twentieth, was to be found in the four main cities— Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin. As we will see later in this—and subsequent—chapters, idealism and dedication in the smaller provincial towns and rural districts was no match for isolation and limited human, physical and financial resources.
