Crucket

The biggest day in my cricket season, day two of the 3rd test, the day I spent at the Basin Reserve watching live cricket, and it was arse! The Black Caps played meekly and failed meekly. They were dismissed for 197, crawling along at 3 runs an over. Worst day’s cricket all season.

It is hard work spending a day on the bank at the Basin on a typical Wellington day. The incessant wind evaporates your strength. The sun won’t stay out from behind the clouds for long enough to keep you warm, but is bright enough to give you a headache from the glare. Your legs and buttocks ache from stopping you slipping down onto the people sitting below.

But when the game is on in town, where would you be but at the ground? To hear the ball hit the bat, to see the game unfold, to watch in person the players you’ve been following since the first game of the tour.

Here are the Black Caps arriving, looking confident with just one wicket to take:

Then once they started batting, they initially showed the required application:

While we enjoyed the atmosphere of the bank and the appropriate culinary delights:

But then the Indian bowlers started to exert themselves. Not this chap so much:

Though he did give us a few demonstrations of the poise that makes him such an exciting prospect:

Instead it was the guy at the other end, Zaheer Khan with 5/65 (click on the photo and wait a bit):

Then the fans started to flock to their heros:

And cheered them on from the crowd:

By the time they returned to the field for the third session, the writing was on the wall, and it read 140/7:

Another day of drama witnessed (largely) from the bank at the Basin Reserve under Mt Victoria:

Down at my local sports field, MacAlister Park, the curved boundary lines have been repainted into straight sidelines as the seasons have turned.

However, on a bright sunny day at the height of summer, when the outfields were burnt brown, I took a walk around MacAlister Park and took some photos.

(Click on the photos to see a decent sized version.)

The cricket grounds are crammed into MacAlister Park, in such a way that the pitch of one ground is the boundary of another. Fielding at deep cover in one game would make you backwards silly mid-off at another.

To work out who is fielding in which game, you have to pay attention to which way they are facing:

However, you are always alone when you have just gotten out:

Finding a good spot on the boundary you can follow three games at once: