12 Aug 2010

Trouble locating Bert Sutcliffe's ashes

5:11 pm on 12 August 2010

One of New Zealand's greatest cricketers is proving as difficult to shift in death as he was in life.

Attempts to find and relocate the ashes of Bert Sutcliffe have failed because no-one recorded where they were buried at Carrisbrook in Dunedin nine years ago.

The ground is being redeveloped and the Sutcliffe family had agreed for the ashes to be relocated to University Oval, the headquarters for cricket in the city.

The ground's been prodded with turf probes, combed by a metal detector, and swept by a sonar device, all to no avail.

Sutcliffe, a left-hander, was regarded as one of New Zealand's most elegant batsmen.

He played 42 tests, with five centuries and an average of 40.1.