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. 

Hat Tricks I Have Seen (No 8)

Will Williams, for Canterbury v Wellington, T20, Basin Reserve, 9 January 2020

Scorecard

After a twenty-year wait, another hat trick, the eighth I have been present to see. It occurred at the Basin Reserve, which always looks a treat at the turn of the year, when the pohutukawas smear their deep red around the ground and up the hill to Government House.

The occasion was a round-robin game in New Zealand’s domestic T20 competition. A win would make Wellington unassailable at the top of the table, and thus guaranteed to host the final. What’s more, the Basin Reserve is available, unlike the last time Wellington won hosting rights for a domestic final, when it had carelessly been let to a beer festival.

Canterbury—who needed a win to keep alive their slim chances of making the second v third playoff—batted first after winning the toss. The first half of their innings went well, and it looked like a score in the region of 175 was attainable, but the dismissal of top-scorer Jack Boyle halfway through the innings removed the momentum. Six wickets fell for only 70 runs in the final ten overs, leaving a target of 149, which appeared 20 or so short. Leg-spinner Peter Younghusband was the main brake on the innings, conceding only 16 from his four overs and taking two wickets.

At the top of the Wellington order, Devon Conway displayed a range of shots that showed why his becoming eligible for New Zealand later this year so excites the cricket community. When he was fourth out in the fourteenth over, 49 were still required. Fraser Colson and Jamie Gibson for the fifth wicket kept the asking rate steady and with three overs left 23 were needed.

Only now was Will Williams introduced into the attack, odd given that he batted at No 9. Williams had impressed on his previous visit to the Basin earlier in the season when he was the only Canterbury bowler to hold the line while Conway made a triple century, conceding under two an over when the overall scoring rate was four-and-a-half. Williams is a right-arm medium pacer with a jaunty run up.

The first three balls went for a two and two singles. For the fourth, Williams produced a perfect yorker that bowled Colson, the man most likely to take Wellington to victory. For the first time in the innings Canterbury edged ahead.

It was this pressure that made new batsman Lauchie Johns unwisely go for the big shot over mid on from the next ball, which was never far enough up for that to be the best option. Chad Bowes took the catch easily ten metres or so in from the rope.

The hat-trick delivery was on a length on middle stump. Gibson (the batsmen had crossed) attempted to play it through mid-wicket but got the line wrong and tamely lobbed it back down the pitch. It took a quick change of direction and an outstretched right arm for Williams to take the catch himself.

Nuttall did not allow Wellington any boundaries in the nineteenth over, so 12 were required from the last, bowled, of course, by Williams. A single was followed by a straight four, another single and two, leaving four needed from two deliveries, though the two points available for a tie would have been enough to have guaranteed Wellington the home final (we are off super overs in New Zealand for reasons that it is still too soon to speak of with any ease).

Younghusband seemed to have made good contact with the fifth ball, but he had hit it a fraction early, sacrificing distance for elevation and providing Bowes with a second easy catch at deep mid on.

Logan van Beek almost did it. He hit the ball with sufficient timing and power that five metres either side of Bowes, and it would have crossed the boundary first bounce. But it was straight at him, and he took the catch that gave Williams what was said to be the second fastest five-for in terms of balls bowled in List A T20 cricket worldwide.

Of my eight hat tricks this was the one that had the most immediate impact on the outcome of the game; without it, Wellington would almost certainly have won (though the ability of Wellington teams to sniff out defeat when others would only discern only the sweet aroma of victory is well known). I haven’t verified the hypothesis, but I assume that the frenetic nature of T20 makes hat tricks less of a rarity than they are in longer forms, but they are still quite something for the cricket buff.

Posts on the previous seven hat tricks I have seen are here, here and here.

Serenity at the building site

Wellington v Canterbury, Plunket Shield, 26 February to 1 March 2017

Each province has five home games in the Plunket Shield. This season, Wellington’s first was played in spring when the Basin Reserve was a sub-branch of the Antarctic; the second was played 550 kms away; the third was cancelled because of earthquakes; this game is the fourth; the fifth is a day-nighter during the working week. So this match represented the best chance this season of enjoying domestic first-class cricket in the sun. I was there for most of the first day, and after lunch on the second and third days.

Readers in Britain should understand that domestic first-class cricket in New Zealand has long since ceased to be regarded as an attraction for the paying spectator. There is no charge, but neither are there any spectator services (though it is possible for members to buy food in their lounge), or even a public address announcer. The Basin is a public thoroughfare unless there is a match that requires payment at the gate, so there is a constant stream of pedestrians and cyclists passing between the spectators (not always in the plural) and the field of play.

A couple of years ago this fixture was played at Karori Park in Wellington’s western suburbs, sharing the field with two kids’ games and getting a smaller audience than either.

Pleasant as it was sitting in the sun at the Basin last week, I still thought wistfully of my day at the Nevill in Tunbridge Wells last July when 3,000 plus sweltered watching a game of first-class county cricket with all the panoply that comes with it: the marquees, the scorecard sellers, the food stalls. How one yearned now for the seductive chime of the ice cream van.

Add to this that the Basin’s main stand remains a building site. Our friends in the full body suits and breathing masks were back on the third day to remind us of the risk we were taking in watching the cricket. There are currently no seats in the stand and the members’ lounge reverberated to hammering and drilling.

All this would be inconsequential were it not for the fact that New Zealand are to play South Africa in a test match here starting only two weeks after the end of this game. It would be nice if there were seats in the stand for people to sit in. The official word is that the new seats are “on the way from China”. Insert the phrase “slow boat” into that sentence at will. The Museum Stand is full of sturdy wooden benches, but is shut, being an earthquake risk (yet the museum beneath it remains open).

Canterbury have become the first New Zealand team to adopt the practice (now established in the County Championship) of putting numbers and names on white shirts. The names are too small to read, there is no publicly available list of which number belongs to which player, and on the first day nine of 11 numbers were covered by sweaters, but the thought’s the thing.

Wellington were put in by Canterbury and made 291 in 91 overs, built around two century partnerships: 117 for the third wicket by Papps and Borthwick and 108 from Marshall and Blundell for the fifth.

Michael Papps is in fine form in his nineteenth season of first-class cricket. He moved to his half-century with three fours in one over off Andrew Ellis. Scott Borthwick was less fluent. He was in many pundits’ squads for England’s test tour of India after consistent high scoring for Durham for the past three years, but not that of the selectors. Instead he finds himself playing in the local leagues for Johnsonville, where the Taj Mahal and Gateway of India are merely alternative sources of takeaway dinners. What’s more, Borthwick was unable to secure a regular place in Wellington 20 and 50-over teams, carrying the drinks on several occasions. Here he toughed it out for 47, the sort of innings that can turn a player’s form around.

Hamish Marshall started slowly but was soon cutting like Vidal Sassoon and reached his fifty from 82 balls. Aside from the two century partnerships, Wellington’s highest score was Jeetan Patel’s 14.

Before the game began, Patel was called up to the national ODI squad for the final two games of the South African series, so would play for the first two days here before being substituted by someone who can also bat and bowl. This, I don’t approve of. It’s different from having a player called up unexpectedly halfway through a game. One of the defining features of cricket is starting with a set of resources that cannot be varied.

Matt Henry, five for 62 from 26 overs, was Canterbury’s best bowler. It is hard to recall Henry bowling badly for New Zealand, and he is No 10 on the ICC ODI bowling rankings, but he is not in the national team for any form of the game currently. Here he bowled with pace and penetration, the rain breaks helping to keep him fresh.

On the second day I arrived just after lunch to find Canterbury 60 for two. Peter Fulton was in and looking good. A couple of weeks previously he had destroyed Wellington with magnificent century in the 20-over final of the 50-over competition. Here, he looked as if his form had been carried over. Unusually, it is Fulton’s onside shots that are all timing and those on the offside that rely on power. He was out for 79, poking at a ball well outside off, a tame way for one in such good touch to get out. Henry Nicholls went in similar fashion, suggesting that this was not a pitch that took kindly to being driven on. Anurag Verma’s skiddy fast-medium was responsible for both dismissals.

Jeetan Patel bowled a long spell, offering value before heading for the airport at the end of the day. For the greater part he bowled with no fielders on the boundary, something that you usually see only when a side is on all-out attack. Mid on and mid wicket were both two-thirds of the way back, an invitation to batsmen to have a go. Yet when Todd Astle accepted the offer it took only a couple of successful tonks to send the fielder back to long on. He stared, Patel (or maybe captain Papps) blinked.

Hamish Bennett bowled (another) hostile spell. He has Astle lbw and thought that he had Fletcher caught behind, but the umpire demurred. As well as being a quality bowler, Bennett is one of New Zealand’s finest appealers, fit to be measured against Robin Jackman of Surrey, always the gold standard of appealers.

Arnel, the grumpy grandad of the Wellington attack, was the meanest of the bowlers, not helped by the frustrated air kick that he aimed at the ball at the end of one over making unintended connection, giving the batsman a bonus overkick. He took just one wicket, as did Patel (27 overs) and Woodcock (three overs).

Wicketkeeper Cam Fletcher shepherded the tail to a total of 243, displaying the gnomic qualities of his distinguished Essex namesake, but a deficit of 54 seemed significant on a pitch that was (to borrow Scyld Berry’s description of a Caribbean pitch the other day) grudging.

Arriving at lunch on the third day, I discovered that Wellington’s second innings progress had been sedate, and continued to be so throughout the afternoon, 248 runs the day’s harvest. It was far from disagreeable, sitting in the sun enjoying a rare pleasant day in Wellington’s Bermuda Triangle of a summer, untroubled by events that might have obliged me to make a note for the later benefit of readers.

Hamish Marshall provided a shot of adrenaline, but of the batsmen who reached double figures, only Borthwick broke the three-an-over sound barrier, that only by a smidgen. So we snoozed happily in the sun, the pitch appearing to join us. Such boundaries as there were came square or backward of square. Wellington’s lead was over 300 by the end of the day, and stretched to 324 on the final morning.

Everything that I had seen over the first three days suggested that 324 at three-and-a-half an over would be too much for Canterbury, and that a serious attempt at a run chase would let Wellington in.

Canterbury won by seven wickets, their 325 made at four-and-a-half an over. Fulton, who might have been expected to lead the charge, was the slowest scorer. Chad Bowes, who had impressed in the T20 at the Basin earlier in the season, made 149 when he was third (and last) out with the score at 236, leaving Henry Nicholls and Cole McConchie to take them home.

I wasn’t there, so don’t know how they managed it, but Patel’s control was obviously missed, his replacement Peter Younghusband bowling eight overs at almost six an over. It is unlikely that the character of the pitch changed much, so it must have come down to attitude and a lot of skill.

It is the huge capacity of first-class cricket to surprise that is one of its chief attractions, no matter if there are calm spells along the way. Let’s hope that next year the weather and schedule makes it possible to enjoy a bit more of it.

Wellington v Canterbury, T20 semi-final, Basin Reserve, 5 February 2017

Scorecard

Arriving at the Basin with the bank already filling I was taken back to seventies mornings when the smell of bacon frying on campfires in the car park meant that a big knockout game was on at St Lawrence.

Marketing hyperbole has undermined the language of sport. Rugby league in this part of the world is particularly keen to pretend that every game is a final. This match was billed as the preliminary final. But this was the game to decide who would play in the final, so a semi-final is what it really was.

With a bit of imagination and a little licence this one could have been sold as over-35s v under-35s. Wellington had five players in the former category, plus Woodcock who is only a couple of months short. Canterbury had only Peter Fulton.

Both sides have had their progress in the competition aided by being largely untroubled by the selectors. Only Luke Ronchi was missing on international duty from the Wellington team, and the selectors thoughtfully allowed Matt Henry to return to the Canterbury team following an indifferent performance in the T20 against Bangladesh in Napier the previous evening.

However, Canterbury had three other players who have been selected for New Zealand in one form or another this season—Henry Nicholls, Todd Astle and Kent’s Tom Latham—and looked the stronger team on paper.

Not that Latham had much influence on the game; he went early, lbw to a full toss that was quite the worst ball that Hamish Bennett bowled in his opening spell. That brought together Henry Nicholls and Chad Bowes for the best batting of the game, a second-wicket partnership of 69 in nine overs. Nicholls we know about, but I’d not heard of Bowes before. He’s a member of the white South African cricketing diaspora, captain of the Proteas under-19 team in 2012. Now he wants to play for New Zealand (which is, at least, preferable to wanting to play for Hampshire).

Bowes is a proper batsman whose 56 from 41 balls was full of intelligent orthodox shots. He hit eight fours, three of which were from successive deliveries from Brent Arnel, an interest-free advance from a payday loan shark. Nicholls also scored fours from three successive balls, off Luke Woodcock, though they were his only boundaries. He is a bat-through sort of batsman, which can be a euphemism for not having that top gear that is needed to flay a bowler in T20.

When Bowes was out in the 13^th over, the score was 96 for two, so 180-plus was in prospect. But Jeetan Patel had already set about cutting off the blood supply. At last, Patel is getting the recognition as a master practitioner at home that he enjoys in England. When he came on the Canterbury innings was a roaring lion. When he finished, it was tamely eating from his hand.

Canterbury’s assistant coach Brendon Donkers was on the radio on the morning of the game saying that T20 was all about boundaries, there being a strong correlation between hitting the most boundaries and winning the game. He went as far as to say “forget about the singles”. A truism perhaps, and a petard to be hoisted by. Patel conceded only one four, a reverse sweep by Peter Fulton off the fourth ball of his fourth over.

Hamish Bennett was even more miserly, going for just 18 from his four overs with wickets from the last two balls of the innings. Canterbury’s total of 151 looked at least 15 short of a break-even score.

For many years Hamish Marshall was confused with his identical twin James. Now he has another doppelganger at the other end in Michael Papps. Both are short, old (in cricketing terms) and bat pugnaciously with a fusion of hard-hit conventional shots and new-fangled improvisation. Their fifty partnership for the first wicket came up from the first ball of the fifth over. Matt Henry took a particular pounding and may have wished that he had stayed in the Hawke’s Bay sun.

It seemed like a procession, but as has been related in these columns often enough, Wellington’s sports teams have a talent for escaping from match-winning situations that would spring them from Colditz. Here leg-spinner Todd Astle was the agent of change. He came on as soon as the fielding restrictions were relaxed and struck immediately taking a hard-hit return catch to get rid of Marshall.

We had a strong earthquake here in Wellington a couple of months ago that has led to the demolition of a couple of large buildings and design faults being exposed in others. Earthquake Astle revealed structural failings in the Wellington batting. The foundations were shaky and innings began to suffer from liquefaction. Papps was bowled by a perfect googly and 103 for one became 110 for five inside three overs.

Astle bowled his spell through, which supports my idea that sometimes captains meddle too much with the bowling roster in T20. Maybe he could have been risked during the powerplay.

With better support from the other end Astle would have won the game, but instead there was a curious effort from off-spinner Tim Johnston. I have been reading Jon Hotten’s The Meaning of Cricket, which contains accounts of the yips suffered by various bowlers, that describing the psychological implosion of Scott Boswell of Leicestershire in a one-day final at Lord’s being particularly harrowing:

“It took Scott Boswell a decade to rebuild his relationship with the game that had dominated his life.”

Perhaps because this was fresh in my mind, when Johnston failed to release the ball in the delivery stride a couple of times, I began to have my suspicions. He did so again, this time giving Papps a “Mankading” warning, which I thought might have been a cover story. Then came a slow beamer to Blundell. The resulting free hit went for six and ultimately made all the difference. Johnston was taken off after two overs, but surprisingly brought back later, when it was a choice between him and the out-of-touch Logan van Beek. The yips were not apparent this time, but a six by Taylor landed on the roof of the merchandising stall and a quicker delivery resulted in four byes.

The only bowler I have seen have a complete meltdown in this way was the great Australian quick Graham McKenzie, as unlikely a victim of the yips as could be imagined. It happened in a Sunday League game at Folkestone in 1971. McKenzie had bowled three overs with no hint that anything was awry, but in his fourth started to bowl front foot no-balls—called by his compatriot Bill Alley—and couldn’t stop, even when he reduced his run-up to three paces. Maybe the 15-yard restriction on run-ups that applied in the Sunday League at that time had an effect, but McKenzie’s was an economical approach to the crease that made it seem unlikely. The over was 14 deliveries long and went for 31, as many as I have seen come from one over. It was as strange a thing as I have witnessed as a spectator.

Two more wickets kept the collective blood pressure of Wellington supporters right up there, and the final over began with five needed and three wickets standing. Here I draw your attention to my comparison in my last post of Luke Woodcock to Darren Stevens in terms of reliability and reassurance. Two cover drives to the boundary off van Beek off the first two balls of the over and it was done.

Postscript:

The final took place just two days later, with Wellington travelling to Pukekura Park, New Plymouth to play Central Districts. I watched on TV. 4,000 were crammed into the most beautiful cricket ground I know of, spread out across one row of benches on each level of the grass ziggurats that tower over the ground on three sides.

Earlier this season a new world T20 record for a match aggregate was set on the ground, with CD falling one short of Otago’s 249. A runfest was expected, so when Wellington found themselves at eight for two, and later 114 for seven, hope had left the ground. An unbroken partnership of 58 by Taylor and Patel guided Wellington to the lower foothills of respectability, but a trouncing still appeared inevitable.

But by the end of the third over of the CD innings, Mahela Jayawardene and Jesse Ryder had both gone for ducks and the favourites never got going. Wellington won by 14 runs, a street in T20 terms.

I have enjoyed the later stages of the competition more than I thought I would because it has been less predictable than the shortest form can often be and there has been some good, thinking cricket. The fact that it is not presented in the overblown way that the Big Bash is also helps, particularly in the TV commentary which has been sensible and understated, as is the Kiwi way.

Next, the first of two test matches at the Basin this season, against Bangladesh.