Having lost three of its four games to start the trip to Canterbury, the under 21s side had possibly their worst day on tour against Canterbury Suburban in Christchurch yesterday.

The Emus batted first in a 50-overs-per-side one-dayer but didn’t last the full consignment of overs.

They were dismissed for 118 with Joe Willman’s 28 the top score.

Dave Riley was next best with 22 and captain Alex Byrne made 17.

At one stage the Emus had fought their way back to 5-112 and looked like building a reasonable total but then lost the last five wickets for just six runs.

“It was a big collapse at the end,” team manager Terry Browne said.

“We recovered after losing some early wickets.

“Then we collapsed.

“They got them pretty comfortably.”

A few Canterbury Suburban players chipped in scores to see their side win by six wickets, needing less than half the allotted overs.

Glen Innes’ Brendan Reynolds took 2-47, Brad Robinson 1-31 and Willman 1-14 but the bowling performance was a bit like the batting, with only patches of good form shining through.

“There were 22 wides in 21 overs,” Browne said.

“That was pretty indicative.”

The game was over so early that the teams decided to play a Twenty20 game and the Kiwis managed a bigger score batting first than the Emus had managed in the earlier game.

Leighton Johnson smashed 56 not out to help Suburban to 6-148 from its 20 overs.

Rees (2-29), Jeremy Cowin (2-22), Matt Parish (1-31) and Mick Rixon (1-24) were the wicket-takers for the Emus.

The Emu chase fell well short with early wickets hampering their cause.

They now head to Ashburton today to face Mid Canterbury in a one-dayer.