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The combined Wellington-Manawatu Central Districts team and the first national deaf cricket tournament in Upper Hutt this week thrashed Canterbury by nine wickets in the final, passing its total of 98 after only 13 of the allocated 50 overs.

Stewart Smith who is deaf, has been in teams which have won the New Zealand fours twice, and one of his team has won the Auckland singles three years running.

New Zealand Sign Language must be given official recognition as a language or it will die, Deaf Association President Jennifer Brain says.

The room is full of waving hands and exaggerated facial gestures. Even though the room is silent the dozen women are "talking" with each other just as volubly as if they were having a chinwag. It is a women's only class in New Zealand's latest offical language - NZSL.

When the 1400 competitors and officials arrive in Christchurch to take part in the World Games for the Deaf, TVNZ's news programme for the deaf will be ready and waiting. The small staff of the weekly programme "News Review" is being boosted by four journalists to cover the events of the three-week games in January.

Noel Coventry is a 22-year-old deaf athlete and the sole New Zealand representative going to the Deaf Olympics in Yugoslavia. Club officials would drop a handkerchief for him to sight as a sign that the starting gun had been fired.

The deaf Lynndale athlete is endeavouring to gain selection for the forth coming Deaf Olympics to be held in Yugoslavia in July.

Coventry who will contest the 5000 and 10,000 metres and 15-mile modified marathon races, has perhaps the best chance for a medal in the longest event.

Four New Zealand deaf athletes are favoured to win medals in swimming, cycling, and badminton. The 112-strong New Zealand team will compete in 11 of the 12 sports.

Deaf students have the right to equal access to tertiary education but who will pay for sign language interpreters?

The Games will be about the same size as the 1974 sporting extravaganza in Christchurch, the Commonwealth Games. Yet it has been orchestrated on a budget of $700,000 – about one-third of the cost of the opening ceremony planned for the 1990 Commonwealth Games in Auckland.

When Alan Ovens yells at his sister Susie on the basketball court, she never listens. Quite simply, she can't. Susie Ovens is the captain of the New Zealand women's deaf basketball team.

People who can hear as well as see 'Reasonable Doubts' (TV3, 9.50pm Saturdays) might be surprised to learn that Deaf New Zealanders can understand deaf lawyer Tessa Kaufman’s sign language little better than they can. ASL, used by Deaf actor Marlee Matlin, is a foreign language here. My Deaf friends give it the thumbs up. But the failure of television in New Zealand to provide anything in NZSL is described as “a running sore” by Hilary McCormack.

Basketball referees Peter Murray and Peter Downie are quite used to being accused of being blind. This they ignore. Accusations of deafness are a different matter.