Kyabram croquet star Trevor Bassett was able to make his mark for Australia at the recent MacRobertson Shield in England.

The shield is association croquet’s world team championships, where Australia competes every four years against England, New Zealand, and the United States.

Bassett donned the green and gold for the first time in 20 years at the event, where the Aussies were up against it, missing their top five ranked players due to unavailability.

Playing each other nation in a test comprising 21 matches and running for five days, results went as expected for the underdogs.

Australia lost each of its three tests to finish bottom in the round-robin format.

The first test was against England, the defending champion, who won 16-5 on matches.

Kyabramite Bassett was unable to register a win in any of his outings across singles and doubles, despite his best efforts.

Bassett lost both singles, first going down 26-4, 26-0 to Mark Avery before a solid display against Jack Good, losing two closer games 26-10, 26-21.

Playing alongside Greg Hill in doubles, Bassett and his partner lost all three of their matches, being largely outmatched by their high-ranked opponents.

But Bassett fared much better against New Zealand in Australia’s second test, which the side still lost overall, 16-5.

The local player was a part of two Australian wins in the test, winning a singles and doubles match.

Bassett defeated Aaron Westerby 26-2, 6-26, 26-13, and teamed up with Hill to beat Kiwi duo Paddy Chapman and Edmund Fordyce 26-21, 26-16.

In Bassett’s second singles game of the test, he took the first game against Jenny Clarke 26-13, but his opponent came from behind to take out the next two 26-2, 26-2.

Despite being knocked out of contention to win the shield, Australia still had one final test against the US.

But Bassett would be ruled out of action against the Americans due to an acute case of gout, being replaced by team manager James Carlisle.

Australia would go on to lose again, 17-4, finishing its campaign with just 14 matches won from a possible 63.

Meanwhile, England went on to win all three of its tests and retained the shield on its home turf.

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Wednesday, 13th August 2031

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