Triumphs overseas as the season begins at home

Wellington v Canterbury, Ford Trophy

The first day of the season. A day of optimism and excitement for summer days to come; for the older spectators, of relief at having made it through another winter; and often of hot soup and overcoats. When I was last at the cricket, at St Lawrence in April, there were legs of lamb in the kitchen freezer that were warmer than my Blean correspondent and myself. So it was pleasant to find the Basin Reserve warm and windless, spectators able to sit outside in the RA Vance Stand without a sweater. If there is a better day to watch cricket this side of the New Year, we will be fortunate.

My Petone and Brooklyn correspondents have been occupying the same front row seats on the upper deck of the RA Vance Stand for several decades. We refer to it as the Royal Box. There was a crisis at the Australia test match earlier this year when NZ Cricket reserved the seats for dignitaries, forcing a move further up the stand. 

On the first day of the new season there was a shattering discovery. New sightscreens have been installed at both ends of the Basin. They are wider and, crucially, higher. On days where it is directly in line with the pitch, almost a third of the field is not now visible from the Royal Box. If a really quick bowler operates from the southern end it is possible that the slips would be obscured from view. Nevertheless, I was staggered, on arrival at the next game, to find that my Petone correspondent had moved back to the second row. The most apposite historical analogy that captures the magnitude of this shift that I can think of is Pope Clement V’s moving the papacy from Rome to Avignon in 1309.

 

The cause is the exponential growth of sightscreens through the years. I have been watching highlights of ODIs in Australia in the eighties and was reminded that screens in that era were often little wider than the pitch itself. Now, the screen itself is often merely the centrepiece of an installation that covers whole blocks of seats. Still batters are distracted by movement of flies at the edge of the construction. One day the screens at either end will meet on the mid-wicket boundaries, thus removing the inconvenience of providing accommodation for spectators altogether. 

For the first time in a while the opener was not the Plunket Shield, but the 50-over competition, the first four rounds of which precede the first-class fixtures. Wellington were at home to Canterbury, the reigning champions. 

The pitch was yellow-brown rather than the customary green, but there was a fair bit of early-season movement as Wellington opener Tim Robinson discovered when he edged the second ball of the match to second slip. Greenwood and Johnson put on 58 for the second wicket, but with a caution that suggested that a score of 250 or fewer would be enough. Wellington’s 129, with almost ten overs unused, was certainly not.

The collapse was begun by a splendid tumbling catch at deep mid-off by Canterbury skipper Cole McConchie to get rid of Greenwood. That was the first of a career-best five for 14 for Angus Mackenzie, who is barely on the brisk side of medium pace. It was a reward for competence rather than menace; he will often bowl as well without taking a wicket. Poor shot selection or execution helped him, Nick Kelly’s belated attempt to withdraw his bat from the  first ball he received being a prime example. 

Henry Nicholls was the first Canterbury batter to go, at 44 and the loss of three more for 20 gave Wellington hope, but Chad Bowes and Matthew Boyle took them home in the 23rd over without further loss. This was a circumspect Bowes, 48 from 49 deliveries. Later in the week he made the fastest double hundred in List A history. 

The day got better. Indeed, Sunday 20 October 2024 goes down as one of the most memorable in New Zealand’s cricketing story. The early finish at the Basin allowed us to get home in time for the first ball in Bengaluru, where New Zealand were chasing 107 for their first test victory in India in 36 years. Even more remarkably, this victory was followed by another at Pune that gave New Zealand a first series win in India, the first there by any team for 12 years. 

Then, still on Sunday in Dubai, the New Zealand women won the T20 World Cup by beating South Africa, rather easily, in the final. Both these triumphs were utterly unexpected. We in the south Pacific are all as surprised as everyone else.

The men played two tests at Galle in Sri Lanka a few weeks before going to India. Both were lost, the first honourably, falling 63 short of a target of 275,  the second catastrophically, replying to Sri Lanka’s 602 for five declared with 88 all out. They looked a shambles in the field too, as poor a performance in this respect as I could recall. 

Three weeks later they bowled India out for 46 in the first innings and won by eight wickets. How could this be? There was a change of captain. Tim Southee never looked at ease in the role, and has increasingly questionable value as a bowler. Tom Latham, effectively sacked when Kane Williamson stepped aside, given that he had led the team as much as Williamson in the previous two years or so, becomes the official skipper. Selecting the best bowler helps. Matt Henry was mysteriously omitted in Sri Lanka. He took eight wickets in Bengaluru. 

Henry was injured for the second test, where we expected India to put the world back on its axis on a pitch expected to turn like a cornered cat. It did, and Mitch Santner took 13 wickets to win the game. Santner has become one of the foremost slow bowlers in shorter forms, but that is how he has been best described; a slow bowler, not a spinner. Now he was Hedley Verity reinvented. An explanation is beyond me. I just delight in the cricket of it. 

The World Cup win was every bit as unexpected as the strange events in India. The White Ferns (ironically named given that they have not played a test match since 2003) had lost ten T20 internationals on the trot before the competition, all to either England or Australia. None of those games were close. Before that there was a series loss at home to Pakistan, a team years behind New Zealand in terms of coaching and finance. 

In the World Cup, they lost a group game to Australia, but were otherwise untroubled. Both nemeses, Australia and England, carelessly allowed themselves to be eliminated before facing the Kiwis in the knock-out stage, which helped.

What both unexpected triumphs had in common was the excellence of a Wellington player at their centre. I have been lauding Rachin Ravindra and Amelia Kerr since they first appeared for Wellington. In both cases, it took no special insight to discern their class. Ravindra had so much time, and Kerr astonishing control mixed with the ability to turn the ball both ways. Here, she was the leading wicket taker, made runs when they were most needed and was player of the tournament by a distance. Ravindra’s first innings 139 had the commentators in ecstasy at its class. In the second, he made batting look easy, when it had appeared anything but. One of cricket’s delights is spotting a good one early and watching them grow. 

It has been almost six months since I last posted, as long an interval as there has been since My Life in Cricket Scorecards was inaugurated in 2009. This was mainly a question of time. I have chosen to interpret the turfing out of the Labour Government here in New Zealand at last October’s election as the voters expressing a wish that I spend more time at the Basin Reserve, and have reduced my hours working in Parliament, creating a bit of space for writing, so more soon, hopefully.

Retirement and age mean that, despite having not lived there since 1997, I have to deal with officialdom in the UK. How you people over there get anything done, I just don’t know. I received a letter from Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs telling me that I was due a refund on tax paid on my UK teacher’s pension, and that a cheque would arrive soon. 

I can tell that you have questions. In answer to that of younger readers, a cheque is how they paid for things in black-and-white films. And to the next, no, I don’t understand why they didn’t put the cheque in that envelope, rather than in another one two weeks later either. The currency, you ask? UK Sterling, making it unbankable in New Zealand. I could have asked that the money be paid direct into a UK bank account by stating as much on my tax return, had I been required to make one, which I was not. And I couldn’t use the website as I don’t have a UK postcode, so it wouldn’t let me register. I have a mental picture of HMRC officials wearing frock coats and sitting on high stools, quills in hand.

HSBC were easier to contact and much more helpful, but couldn’t accept a scanned copy of the cheque, so instructed that I should send it to them, with a paying-in slip, which they would send me, given that I had remissfully not equipped myself with one, not having paid a cheque into a UK account in the current millennium. Thus, in the era of AI, two bits of paper made their way halfway across the world, and back again. By the way, there is no windfall here. My role is merely that of intermediary between the tax authorities of both countries.

I have to say, as an infrequent visitor, that life in the UK seems, in most respects, to be a bit more complicated than it needs to be. When I was planning a day at Lord’s in May, I discovered the 21 steps that the Middlesex website makes the potential spectator go through to purchase a ticket. It was something of a relief that it rained.