He took the first catch in New Zealand first-class cricket in the match against Otago in January 1864 when he caught Charles Morris off the bowling of John Stevens for 1.
[2][3][4] A useful slow bowler and wicket-keeper, he captained Canterbury several times before returning to England in 1868.
He imported the machinery from England in 1866 to use on his farm at Waipara, north of Christchurch.
[6] Powys died in Argentina, where he was one of the settlers in the Alexandra Colony in Santa Fe Province in the 1870s.
[7][8] He died on 8 October 1875, one of a number of the colonists who were killed by the local indigenous inhabitants.