The Basin Reserve Test: First Day

New Zealand v England, 2nd test, first day, Basin Reserve, 6 December 2024

Scorecard

It is some time since I wrote on a single day of a test match, and I may not do so for the remainder of this game, but today at the Basin was so relishable that I could not resist.

Two trends in modern selection could be observed in the composition of the teams here. The first is a degree of loyalty to current members of the XI that makes the average labrador look like Philby, Burgess or Maclean in comparison. Marnus Labuschagne is a beneficiary of this approach in the Australian XI, Tim Southee, and possibly Devon Conway, in the New Zealand team, and Zak Crawley for England. 

I have noted previously that my face in the crowd means that Crawley may as well not bother. This was the seventh time I had seen him in the middle and on only one of the previous occasions had he breached double figures. In Canterbury in April (the last time I was as cold as I was in the final hour today, incidentally) he nicked off for five. But today, with England put in by Tom Latham, Crawley reached ten with a six off Southee’s final delivery of the first over. Was the hoodoo broken? I had with me my Kent sunhat, which I intended to put on to mark Crawley reaching his hundred, sometime around the first drinks break at the rate at which he set off. 

There is much talk here in Wellington about the planning of a second tunnel through Mt Victoria, adjacent to the Basin. Now we found that it already exists, in the form of the two-lane highway down which Matt Henry’s delivery passed between Crawley’s bat and pad as he swished at his old Kent teammate to be bowled for 17. Crawley on the attack is a thrilling sight, but he has a pacifist’s defence, which is why, after 50 tests, he has an average barely above 30 and only four centuries. 

Ben Duckett was already out, for an eight-ball duck, a period of self-denial in Duckett’s terms equivalent to St Simon Stylites, who lived on a pillar near Aleppo for 26 years. This brought together Harry Brook and Jacob Bethall, potentially one of the great partnerships from now to c2040. Bethall hit a couple of gorgeous off drives before falling to a legside strangle off Nathan Smith. Joe Root was caught spectacularly by Daryl Mitchell at first slip, also off Smith. At the moment, New Zealand seem able to catch only the really difficult ones. 

England were 43 for four and in deep trouble. Fortunately for the visitors, the fifth-wicket pair that turned the game in Christchurch last week were together again, and this time they did not need the collaboration of the New Zealand fielders. 

The last time Harry Brook played at the Basin was in the Greatest Test of All, almost two years ago. Then he made 180, an innings that was the best that we had seen there for some years before, or since. It was elegant, precise  and technically not far from perfect. Today’s innings contained examples of all those elements, but with raw power and apparently (but not actually) reckless attack. At one stage it appeared that an air-raid siren should be sounded when Brook faced bowling from the southern end, so under bombardment was the food truck area. In its audacity, confidence, and domination of and contempt for the bowling it reminded me of Viv Richards, who I saw score three one-day final centuries at Lord’s, the best of which won a World Cup. I have no praise higher than that at my disposal.

Brook’s partner, Ollie Pope, continued where he left off at Hagley, Only in comparison with Brook was he laggardly as they put on 174 in just 26 overs. The innings became a runaway thoroughbred at which the home attack could only wave their arms at as it thundered past them. The other nine partnerships collectively mustered only 106. Pope succumbed to the extra pace of O’Rourke, top edging a pull to go for 66. If he does not want to keep the gloves and bat at No 6 he needs to drop a couple of sitters before the series is out.

Brook’s magnificence ended absurdly. Just before tea he nudged one into the legside and inexplicably set off for a single, the possibility of which had no more status than a QAnon rumour. Smith, following through, casually flicked the ball at the stumps to effect the run out by several metres. He made 123 from 115 deliveries. There was no wag of the tail; the last three wickets put on only 21, fpr a total of 280 (or 279, depending what scoreboard you were looking at and when; the North Koreans who undermine western morale through their control of the Basin Reserve scoreboard were in peak form today). 

Matt Henry was New Zealand’s best bowler, by quite a distance. After four overs his figures were 4-4-0-2, Will O’Rourke finished with three for 49, a much more accurate measure of his value than he attained in the first test. His pace makes a difference. 

Putting Nathan Smith on to bowl places the captain in the position of Aristotle Onassis asking Jackie Kennedy to marry him. It will be fun, but my God, the expense. Four for 86 off 12, plus the run out.

Which brings us to the other trend of modern selection, that of players announcing their own farewell. David Warner is the most egregious example, initiating a rolling national holiday culminating at the SCG where he left the team mid-series. Then Jimmy Anderson had his celebration test at Lord’s. He is here, joining in the warm ups, reminding me of those folk who retire then turn up two days a week and sit in the corner drinking tea, Can the ECB not get him an allotment, or something, to keep him occupied? 

Now Tim Southee, to go at home at Seddon Park next week. Twice in one over he was effortlessly driven to the cover boundary by Brook. No disgrace there, Then I looked again. It wasn’t Brook, but Woakes, who had just come in at No 8, but able to treat Southee with disdain. Mitch Santner was in the squad here. I do not think that his 13 wickets at Pune are enough to refute the lack of evidence of his previous 28 tests regarding him as a test-class spinner. But there was a case for picking him because of his defensive white-ball qualities, to stem the English torrent. With four right-arm quicker bowlers there is an element of Trevor Bailey’s dictum that you can change the bowler, but not the bowling. 

Then there is Will Young, player of the series in the three-nil win in India, lauded by Sunil Gavaskar as the most technically proficient New Zealand batter, but omitted for the first two tests because of that loyalty factor. There was almost nobody in the ground who believed this to be the correct decision except for those who pick the New Zealand side. With New Zealand five down and 194 behind at the close, they must surely relent. Only Williamson looked in anything like top form, and he was bowled by a no ball before edging a good ball by Carse to the keeper.

It might be thought, after 19 seasons watching at the Basin, that I would have paid more attention to the small print of the weather forecast. I was scammed by the predicted 20 degrees and failed to look at the wind direction, which was southerly, and roaring. I was at least three layers short of the minimum in such conditions. Furthermore, I forgot that in Wellington it is possible to shiver from the cold while burning from the sun, even though you are in the shade. Perhaps the memory of the three-nil series win in India just a month ago is a collective hallucination, brought on by these extreme conditions. 

Cricket in England, April 2024

Kent v Surrey, County Championship, 19-22 April 2024

It was such a good plan. I would begin in Canterbury with two or three days under the Spring sun before heading west to Bristol to watch at the County Ground for the first time since leaving for New Zealand in 1997. Then a day at Lord’s, where I had last been that same summer, when I put on my suit for a day in the pavilion on my Kent member’s privilege. But England was grey, wet and, above all, cold this April, so my return to English cricket after a five-year interval ended up as two (slightly-less-than) half-days at St Lawrence, where champions Surrey were the visitors.

It was wet on the first morning, but I made my way up the Old Dover Road regardless. I am drawn to this place of memories and happiness whenever I return to Kent, especially today, when tributes were to be paid to Derek Underwood, who had died a few days before.

With no score to show, the big screen was playing a reel of highlights of Underwood picking off some of the best: the Oval ’68 (how well I remember that long afternoon waiting for the puddles to be erased from the Oval outfield and the black-and-white tension of the last hour); Australia in ’72, with Knotty taking a smart catch or two; Eddie Barlow yorked in the 55-over final at Lord’s in ’78.

There was supposed to be a tribute before the start of play, but with the delay they decided to hold it at midday instead (it embraced Ramon Subba Row too). I hope that they do it again when the ground is full and the sun is shining, but at least the few who were there had mostly seen him play. None of the players obviously. For them Derek Underwood would have been as distant a concept as Tich Freeman was to us. But Alec Stewart was there. He played against him and will have let the Surrey team know something of the man.

Those of us who stood and remembered all had stories that we wanted to tell. Mine was of another grey and wet day at St Lawrence, much like this one, forty years before. There were even fewer there that day, but I was one of them. Mark Nicholas was another, one of Underwood’s victims as he made a nonsense of Nick Pocock’s gleeful acceptance of Chris Tavaré’s offer of 179 off 59 overs. You see, rain had got under the covers, and it was bows and arrows against bombs. At least Underwood’s passing was the cause of some fine writing, Nicholas again to the fore. I’m pleased that I was there, in the cold.

There were things to do to pass the time. For an extra fiver, there was a tour of the ground, conducted by a young volunteer called Sam, one of Canterbury’s official guides, but doing this recreationally. He was excellent. I learned more than I expected to, given that I have been steeped in the place all my life. It had never occurred to me to find out why it bears St Lawrence’s name. Thanks to Sam, I now know. He was the second Archbishop of Canterbury after whom a leper hospital on the site of the ground was named, replaced by a mansion called St Lawrence House, which was demolished early in the nineteenth century, creating space for the cricket ground.

The fiver also gave access to a teatime talk in the Chiesman Pavilion (which surely should be renamed the Stevo Pavilion: the great man was present, ready for recall) by Kent’s curator, Ian Phipps. This is intended to be a regular feature, the starting point of each being an item or two from the club’s collection. Here, we went back to the origins of cricket in the county by looking at one of the sticks into which notches were cut to record the scores. Afterwards, I chatted to Ian and he showed me the scorebook in which Colin Cowdrey’s hundredth hundred was recorded in the copperplate hand of Claude Lewis in 1973.

Kent are to be congratulated on these initiatives, which I encourage anybody going to Canterbury to take advantage of. Now, more than ever, there is a need to celebrate cricket’s story and heritage.

Last time I was there, on the final pre-Covid day of cricket in 2019, I was a bit concerned for the old ground, which looked a little tired and uncared for. I am pleased to report that it now has more sparkle about it. There are new seats around the ground and the Frank Woolley no longer looks as if it might crumble out of use. They have done a good job of integrating the new buildings on the pavilion side of the ground; the new dressing rooms are a great improvement on the old. As Andrew Miller notes on a piece that has appeared on CricInfo while I was writing this, even the new apartments look as if they belong; what was there before was only a car park, after all (Miller appears to have had the day in the sun that I was hoping for, but was denied). Only the magnificent old analogue scoreboard over the Leslie Ames Stand, installed in 1971 if my memory is correct, looks as if it may be reaching the end of its life. The biting northerly introduced a random element by blowing the numbers about in a way that would please the North Koreans who run the Basin Reserve scoreboard. Neither this board nor the big screen can be seen from the Ames Stand, but as this is given over to a bar and hospitality boxes, I doubt that anybody notices.

When the covers were rolled back, I experienced culture shock. Living in New Zealand I have become so used to a first-morning pitch being a palette of greens that one comprising colours of the desert rather than the forest came as a surprise. Perhaps this made the scheduled use of the Kookaburra ball in this game somewhat superfluous as a equalising factor between bat and ball. County cricket, under threat as it is, must be able to sort the good players out from the moderate. Dobbing seamers producing unplayable deliveries in the Spring does not do this, but neither do centuries from mediocre batters against emasculated bowlers. It cannot be beyond the wit of science to produce a ball that combines the qualities of Dukes and Kookaburra. Failing that, a machine like those that choose the Lotto balls could be loaded with an equal number of both and present the fielding side with the ball of the day after the toss.

Zak Crawley might as well not bother if I am in the crowd. I have seen him bat “at the ground” five times including this day; only once, in the second innings of the Greatest Test of All, has he reached double figures (25 in that case). Here, he nicked off to third slip on five off Dan Worrall, who followed up by trapping Ben Compton lbw to reduce Kent to nine for two.

Daniel Bell-Drummond is club captain this year. At 30, his chance of the international preferment for which he was mooted as a youngster has probably gone. This is to Kent’s benefit if he continues to bat as he did here. From the start he showed the touch and eye of a man who has made two centuries already this year. He hit six fours in his first 34 runs, this off perhaps the best attack in the Championship. He was more measured thereafter, but not troubled. It was a surprise when he was out three overs before the close, lbw to Tom Lawes. If he follows in the tradition of Johnson, Ealham snr and Jarvis, to name but three, giving service to county alone, it will have been an honourable career.

It was a treat to watch cricket once more with my Blean correspondent, and to discover that the jokes and observations that originated in the glory years of the seventies have stood the test of time, as has our ability to clear the seats around us with the tedium of our conversation. But some things change, and we both found that the intense cold could not be shaken off as easily as it was in our (potato) salad days. It took us both the rest of the day to restore our body temperatures to normal.

This was my first time back to Kent since my mother passed away in 2021, so there were things to do and people to see. Nevertheless, a bright warm day would have brought about a change of schedule, but the weather continued to be delivered fresh from the Arctic.

We returned on the fourth morning with a short day in prospect. In the interim, Surrey had created a lead of 299, with centuries for Sibley and Lawrence. Kent resumed on 120 for five. It could all have been over very quickly, but the prospect of brevity was an incentive in these conditions. In fact, we found a place inside the Cowdrey Stand, where the bar was closed but the room open. It was much the same as watching from behind glass in the Long Room at the Basin Reserve. The company was similar too. Somebody was doing the stats and keeping us in touch with progress elsewhere. Football is a common topic. Given our location, and small numbers, a statistically unlikely number of the Basin faithful support East Anglian teams, creating an edge to proceedings when an Old Farm derby is in the offing.

There was an excellent discussion in Canterbury about the moral obligation on supporters to attend on days like these that could be all over quickly. It was agreed that it was an imperative for people in the city itself, and probably for Herne Bay and Whitstable, given the improved bus services. Those from the more remote coastal settlements were to be commended, and someone who had come down from Greenwich almost received a standing ovation. One odd trait shared in both locations is that applause continues to be offered as normal, even though we are behind glass and the players can’t hear us. A player who has done really well on a cold day at the Basin will know because the sliding windows of the Long Room will be unfurled like the unmuting of a Zoom call.

The money people who condemn the County Championship to the extremities of the season, and who plot to streamline/optimise/rationalise (or whatever business euphemism is in fashion) the number of matches, and the number of counties don’t know the currency that this stuff is counted in.

The cricket was better than expected, Kent fell only 33 short of making Surrey bat again. Ben Compton went quickly, but Joey Evison and Matt Parkinson put on 74 for the seventh wicket in 31 overs, taking us into an unexpected afternoon session. There was little that was spectacular, but I enjoyed it enormously. Two batters refusing to accept any inevitability about the result against a determined attack. I am pleased that Kent have signed Parkinson, more so that they are both picking and bowling him, even when he goes for a few. This will pay off as the season draws on.

Arafat Bhuiyan batted as all No 11s should, and took a six and two fours off successive deliveries from Kemar Roach, which few have done. Parkinson was out to the second outstanding short leg catch by Jamie Smith, and that was that. A pleasant day in good company.

The biting weather persisted, and I went down with the usual cold I get whenever I return to the old country, so I did not attend the County Ground in Bristol. I could have made a token visit but want what memories I have yet to form of cricket in England to be of shirtsleeves and lemonade, not bobble hats and Benylin. Lord’s was rained off, so I did not have to work my way through the 21 steps that the Middlesex website takes you through before sending you to the MCC website to buy the ticket.

I hope to be back one day, before too long, at a time of the year when the focus can be on enjoying the cricket, rather than the preservation of life. A gritty seventh-wicket stand and the chance to say goodbye to a hero will sustain me for now.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Peaceful days in the sun: New Zealand v England in Hamilton

New Zealand v England, second test, Seddon Park in Hamilton, 29 November to 3 December 2019

Scorecard

Restful. That is how I would characterise my three days at the Hamilton test. There was plenty to enjoy, even though the action was not frenetic (apart from when Neil Wagner was bowling, obviously), and it was good to be back at Seddon Park, which was where I watched test cricket for the first half-decade or so of the new century.

There was plenty to remember, starting with Campbell and Griffiths putting on 276 for the West Indian first wicket, only for their team to lose. That was largely thanks to Chris Cairns, who has been airbrushed out of New Zealand’s cricket history since the lawyers got interested, but was a terrific cricketer.

The following year Australia were reduced to 29 for five, a situation that Adam Gilchrist dealt with by batting as if they were 400 for one. Australia won by six wickets.

There was the two-day test against India beginning on Friday afternoon and won by New Zealand soon after lunch on Sunday on a pitch that looked as if it had been transplanted from the centre court at Wimbledon. I always think of that match whenever I hear people moaning about the Indians and their home-team groundsmen.

Then the crater test against South Africa. A big hole appeared at one end, which the groundsman filled up, then, once he had been acquainted with the rules, emptied again. It was too far outside the right handers’ leg stump to be a threat, and when the ball did land there was as likely to scoot off the other way, but it had a mesmeric effect on the bowlers who wasted a couple of days aiming at it.

So the pitch as talking point is not a new thing for Seddon Park. The strip for this game was similar to that at the Bay Oval in Mount Maunganui for the series opener. That game finished in a New Zealand win well into the fifth afternoon, which is what a test pitch is supposed to facilitate. However, that the Hamilton pitch received an ICC rating of “good”, suggested that cricket needs a new dictionary for Christmas. It was easy for batsmen to stay in on unless they tried to score at more than two-and-a-little-bit an over, which is about as bad as a test-match pitch can be.

There was a historical curiosity about the scheduling of this game in Hamilton after that at the Mount, which is little more than an hour’s drive away. It can’t have happened often that successive tests have been staged on different grounds in the same province/county/state, Northern Districts in this case (though the profusion of venues in Colombo may have beaten ND to it). This was a precaution against New Zealand’s turbulent spring weather, and it paid off, with three balmy days, hot enough to trigger a storm that finished off the first day just after tea.

Hamilton’s new lights were shown off to good effect just before the rain fell. A switch was flicked and made a substantial and immediate difference, even though it wasn’t that dark. In the County Championship, the rule that that the artificial light cannot be stronger than the natural light would mean that their being switched on at all would mean that the players would have to come off there and then.

The previous lights had to come down because the towers were an earthquake risk, though shakes are mercifully rarer in the Waikato than in much of the country. I was CricInfo’s man in Northern Districts when they went up and turned down the chance to climb to the top of one of them.

It seems compulsory for the British cricketing press to preface the name of any New Zealand player other than Williamson, Taylor and Boult with “underrated”. BJ Watling might have been thought to have used up this year’s quota during his double hundred in the first test, but a new supply was rushed out in time for the underrated Tom Latham’s first-day hundred. Those who describe Latham thus have missed his presence in the top ten of the ICC batting rankings over the past year or more.

His batting in the first innings was the most fluent of the match. He scored faster than any specialist batsman on either side, but never appeared to hurry. Latham was helped by Broad’s wayward line in his opening spell. When he got one right it was to Jeet Raval, who edged to Root at first slip. It is so often the case that the man out of form gets the bowler’s best. Raval benefitted from New Zealand’s policy of picking a squad for both these two tests and the three to follow, but further failure in Perth has cost him his place in the Boxing Day test.

Root also caught Williamson, squared up by Woakes, but Ross Taylor became established and by mid-afternoon England looked dispirited, not helped by having two leg-before decisions overturned by the DRS. In just his second over Stokes resorted to three deep on the legside plus a fine third man to Taylor, who was out more conventionally from the ball after he reached his fifty, providing Root with his third catch of the day.

Latham reached his hundred shortly before the rain brought an early end to the first day. He was out early the next morning, leaving on length a Broad delivery that hit the top of off. He was replaced by the underrated Henry Nicholls, also hiding from the English media in plain sight in the top ten of the rankings.

Just when we had agreed that Sam Curran didn’t have the pace for test cricket, he succoured Nicholls into top edging a catch to deep fine leg. Next in was Daryl Mitchell, on test debut on his home ground. Mitchell was as close to a like-to-like replacement for the injured De Grandhomme as was available, which isn’t very close at all, De Grandhomme being more than the cube of his parts, let alone the sum. At 191 for five, England had restored the balance of the game, but Watling and Mitchell reclaimed it with a stand of 124.

It occupied a serene 53 overs. With the heat, the grass bank at the top end, and BJ Watling digging in, I may have dropped off for a few seconds and dreamt myself back at Mote Park in the late seventies, the great CJ Tavaré at the crease, sucking the will to live out of the opposition. Only the Tip Top ice cream signs where the Deal Beach Parlours van should have been returned me to the present.

Joe Root resorted to placing of fielders in odd positions, but it was too random to be convincing. His handling of the bowlers had a by-numbers feel to it, but with an attack consisting of four quicks and an all-rounder whose fitness was dodgy, that would be hard to avoid. It was strange that he put himself on with Latham on 96 and helped the batsman to his century with a friendly (as Jim Laker used to describe all full tosses) full toss.

Mitchell upped such tempo as there was and played well for 73 before going the same way as Nicholls, but off the bowling of Broad, who had got Watling four overs earlier with another short one that went of the shoulder of the bat to Burns in the gully. Late-order merriment took New Zealand to 375.

England had addressed their three-keeper problem by picking a fourth, Ollie Pope, in for the injured Buttler. He was athletic, which with no frontline spinner in the XI was all he needed to be, but he lacks the quality most prized in modern keepers—he doesn’t jabber on incessantly in praise of half volleys.

Jofra Archer had a dispiriting time from which he will learn, but is a fine sight. Anyone who grew up in the era of Willis, Holding and JSE Price finds it hard to understand that a bowler can call himself fast without a run up that embraces two time zones, but with Archer and Bumrah as models, the next generation will strive for brevity.

England lost two before the close of the second day. Writers better qualified in technical analysis than me have written off Dominic Sibley as a test player on the basis that he appears to abstain from the offside as if batting in a permanent Lent. I hope that he proves them wrong, if only to show that runs in county cricket are not irrelevant. Here, it was a relief to all concerned when Southee got him lbw for four.

This was the seventh New Zealand v England test at which I have been present since moving here, but the first time a Kent player has been in the England team. Here there were two, Joe Denly and Zak Crawley.  Denly may yet become the David Steele of our time, a middle-aged hero of the Resistance. Not here though. At least there was a Kentish dimension to the dismissal, caught behind for four off Matt Henry. Denly did achieve something memorable in Hamilton: late in the game he infamously dropped a Sun crossword clue of a chance offered by Williamson. I so hope that is not what he is remembered for when his test career is done.

England finished the day on an uncomfortable 39 for two, though it would have been worse had Rory Burns not been dropped twice, the easier chance to Taylor, the harder to Raval.

My notes for the third morning consist only of the following:

“Root and Burns in no trouble for the first half of the morning”. Then, an hour or so later, “Nor the second half”. Some stories are easily told.

Root was not at his best, or particularly close to it, but that he had to work at it more than he usually appears to made it all the more praiseworthy.

Burns survived another chance on 86 when Henry butchered a run out by trying and failing to intercept a throw that Latham was perfectly placed to collect beside the stumps. He reached his hundred in mid-afternoon. Steve James, in his The Art of Centuries, explained that there is a challenge to overcome for a batsman who survives a chance or chances; he has to convince himself that he retains the right to be there. To say that a batsman is gritty has an air of damning by faint praise about it, but that should not be so, especially for an opener. Burns has that quality and should have a good run at the top of England’s order. He has also shown (see comments re Sibley, above) that runs in county cricket do mean something.

Burns was run out the ball after he achieved three figures, but it took an age to confirm, the problem being to establish that there was separation of bail and stump before Burns had made his ground, though this appeared obvious enough on the big screen. Perhaps the ICC could spare some of its largesse to provide stumps that light up for all tests, and agree that illumination equals separation.

New Zealand’s attritional bowling and field settings meant that Ben Stokes never got going before he fell to a slip catch from a Southee delivery that was one of the few to move laterally.

This brought in Zak Crawley for his debut innings. This was only the second occasion on which I have been present to watch a Kent player at the crease for the first time in a test match. The other was at the very first day’s test cricket I attended, England v New Zealand at the Oval in 1969. Then it was Mike Denness who batted with agonising uncertainty for a 43-ball two. This time it was briefer, but no better.

Crawley was anxious to impose himself and get off the mark. He drove his fourth delivery hard, but Henry at mid on made a sharp stop to prevent the run. This wound Crawley up a little tighter and though he hit the next ball straight to Williamson, he set off for the run as if drawn by an irresistible law of physics. He needed every bit of his diving 6’5” to beat the direct hit.

He edged the second delivery of Wagner’s next over to Watling, so Crawley’s hard-won single will constitute his test record until the next time, perhaps after his domestic record has been fortified with more consistent scoring so as to match achievement with his undoubted promise.

Crawley was on of Wagner’s five wickets. As ever he bowled with such energy and fire as to raise the question of how much more Sisyphus might have achieved had he shown Wagner’s spirit.

I left for the airport soon after Crawley’s dismissal, just before more rain ended the day an hour or so prematurely. Though two days remained, a forecast of rain for much of the last day combined with the torpor of the pitch to make a draw appear all but certain. Centuries from Williamson and Taylor confirmed the result, giving New Zealand the series win, with the usual rider that two games do not a series make.

Return to St Lawrence

Kent v Hampshire, County Championship, St Lawrence Ground, 23 September 2019

Scorecard

Our first visit to the UK in three years coincided with the end of the cricket season, so I looked forward to two or three days at Canterbury for the County Championship game against Hampshire. The weather determined otherwise.

Because of family commitments I was not intending to go on the first day, but the weather forecast for the later three days came straight out of the Book of Genesis, so I thought that I’d better take my chance, and got there at lunchtime. My arrival coincided with a shower, so I hung about outside, unwilling to part with twenty quid with no cricket guaranteed. One of the problems with returning to somewhere that was once home is that my perception of financial value has remained locked in at 1997 values, so that seemed a lot a pay for a possibly curtailed afternoon. (I also have problems with coins; the one-pound variety now look like threepenny bits, while the two-pounds take me by surprise every time. I stare at them in my hand long enough for shop assistants to start looking over my shoulder to see if my carer is here yet).

Having recently had a significant birthday, I asked the man on the gate if there was a reduction for the over-60s, only to be told that those had been done away with seven or eight years ago. Of course. Why would you schedule the great bulk of the County Championship in the working week during the school term then think of giving the only demographic free to watch at that time any incentive to do so?

The last time I was here the northern side of the ground was a building site. The flats have now been completed and are not unsightly. However, the number of seats available on that side has been reduced by more than half. Much as we of Kent like to hark back to the seventies it is regrettable that the seating remains a legacy of that happy decade. The outside seats are barely tiered at all, and the framework is quite rusty. I spent some of the afternoon in the Frank Woolley Stand, which has bits falling off it. The stand is 92 years old, a year more than Woolley himself was when he died, but it is questionable whether it will last much longer than he did. Without some attention soon, there will hardly be anywhere for spectators to sit, which may be the contemporary cricket administrator’s dream.

The answer could be to build a simple stand for around a thousand at the Nackington Road End, similar to that at the Cathedral End at Worcester, but ideally with a roof. It would have the advantage of getting the sun all day, though it would mean that the Band of Brothers and the Old Stagers would have to find another home during Canterbury Week.

The game was to decide third place in the County Championship, Hampshire starting just two points ahead of Kent. Of itself, that showed that things had gone better for the old county than many feared at the start of the season, the reservations chiefly being about the fast bowling. As it turned out, two recruits, neither of them household names at their own address, performed well beyond expectations. Harry Podmore, formerly of Middlesex, but also Derbyshire, Durham and Glamorgan (his first-class debut was for them at St Lawrence in 2016), and Matt Milnes from Nottinghamshire both took more than 50 wickets at under 27 each. What’s more, both remained fit enough to play in all 14 Championship games. Whether they could name all their teammates is questionable; no fewer than 22 players represented the white horse in the Championship, four more than in 1968, when the Championship was last played over double the number of matches it is now.

There was disappointment in the shorter formats. The first win in the 50-over group stage came only in the sixth of eight games, hope of a last Lord’s final appearance already gone.

Things started so well in the T20, with five wins on the trot and six out of seven in the first half of the group stage; progress to the knockout stages appeared certain. In the second half, two rained-off games were the only source of reward, qualification missed by a point. I watched several of these short-form games on television at home in New Zealand, so experienced some of the ecstasy and agony (but mostly the latter) of other Kent supporters.

Though the match was over-shadowed by that between the top two at Taunton, it was disappointing—and a sign of the times—that the press box in the Underwood–Knott Stand was almost empty for this third-place decider. Scorers were there, but the only written account I saw was on CricInfo, an anonymous piece from the ECB Reporters Network. Way back when, the big-name correspondents—even Swanton—would have been wedged into the cramped pressbox at Taunton, but the second rank—DJ Rutnagur, Richard Streeton and the like—would have had seven or eight hundred words at their disposal to describe events at St Lawrence. Of course, these days we have streaming video and the BBC audio commentary, both wonderful accoutrements, but in-the-moment, not a historical record that encapsulates a day at the cricket.

Play resumed after the shower with Kent 78 for six, but Darren Stevens was at the crease, so all would be well. It had been announced that Stevens’ association with Kent was to end, but, in the manner of a faithful Labrador who on his final trip to the vet leaps out of his tearful owner’s arms and kills a cat to demonstrate that his time is not yet up, had earned a year’s reprieve with an astonishing performance at Headingley the previous week. Coming in at 39 for five, he made 237 at more than a run a ball with 28 fours and nine sixes, an innings even more improbable than the match-winning double century against Lancashire that I had the good fortune to see six years ago. He followed with five for 20 as Yorkshire were beaten by 433 runs. That noise you hear is Lord Hawke, spinning in his grave.

One year? I don’t know when I will next return to St Lawrence, but when I do, a pound to a penny, Darren Stevens will still be rescuing Kent from situations so dire that Superman would put them in his too-hard basket. Not this day, however. Stevens was soon lbw to a full-length ball from left-armer Keith Barker.

Barker—who finished with five for 48—is part of a formidable trio of Hampshire fast bowlers, with Kyle Abbott, fresh from taking 17 to finish Somerset’s Championship hopes, and Fidel Edwards, who considers himself sufficiently renowned to have just his first name on his shirt.

What resistance remained was offered chiefly by Ollie Rayner, on loan from Middlesex. Odd that a player who can’t get into a second division team has something to offer one in the top half of the first, but good luck to him.

Mitch Claydon, off to Sussex next year, was warmly welcomed to the crease on his final appearance. He responded with two cover drives of which Woolley would have been proud. Kent were all out for 147.

During the afternoon the England touring parties to New Zealand were announced, including Zak Crawley’s selection for the test squad. This seems to be on the basis of promise rather than form; 916 Championship runs at 35 is no more than respectable. He celebrated with a diving catch at third slip to dismiss Ian Holland for a duck off Podmore.

Incidentally, pleasant though it will be for us to welcome England, it is an oddly conceived tour. For a start, we had England here only last year; the series is not part of the new World Championship; and November is far from the best time to play cricket in New Zealand. In the hope of avoiding hypothermia, the two tests are to be played in the upper half of the North Island in Hamilton and Mt Maunganui, an hour or so’s drive from each other, rather like staging an early-season tour to the UK and playing the tests in Southampton and Hove. Despite successive World Cup final appearances, and a current second-place test ranking, we in New Zealand are left to gather up the scraps that fall from the table when it comes to scheduling. England won’t be back for tests again until at least 2023.

Opening the bowling at the other end was, of course, Stevens. Was it my imagination or has he lengthened his run (I use the term generically, not descriptively; at peak acceleration it remains no more than a saunter)? He was as nagging and mean as ever, more so when he switched to the Nackington Road End. Those that nipped in provoked a series of appeals of which Gina Miller would be proud; those that went the other way flirted with the outside edge like Mae West with a ship’s crew. Organ and Alsop both succumbed lbw.

James Vince cut a somewhat diminished figure as he came in at No 5, the touring party announcement having sent him some way down the test pecking order (though we will see him in the T20s). He and Sam Northeast (courteously greeted I am pleased to report) were there when play was ended by bad light, at the point when the artificial light had become stronger than the natural light. Surely, that is all one hopes for from artificial light, which has no purpose until that point is reached. The PA announcer adopted his solemn voice to tell us that conditions had become dangerous, which was nonsense, the only threat to well-being resting in the sudden increase in the blood pressure of the older spectator.

So it was that my only experience of cricket in Kent this time was all over in the fashionable timespan of a little under three hours. Such was the rain that there was no question of cricket for the next two days. They could probably have got out there on the fourth day, but with Hampshire rightly unwilling to sacrifice their third place in a declaration game, there was no point and it was called off early.

Next time I’m back, it will all be different as The Hundred elbows its way to centre stage of high summer. Kent have a share of the Oval Invincibles, but given that only two Kent players (Billings and Blake) are in the squad it looks more like Surrey with the Fringe on Top.

That was not the end of the cricket watching on this trip…