It wasn't a massive crowd but a content one on the opening day in Seddon Park © Andrew Miller

There was something of an outcry when the Test venues were announced for England's tour of New Zealand. The two biggest population centres of the North and South Island are Auckland and Christchurch respectively, and they have the two biggest stadiums to boot, but neither city was awarded a match. Instead New Zealand cricket farmed its big games out to the "boutique venues" of Hamilton, Wellington's Basin Reserve and Napier. To judge by the crowd on the first day of the series, it was the most sensible decision they've made in years.

It wasn't that it was a massive crowd, but it was a content one. In this era of quick-fix cricket, a five-day Test is a hefty commitment for all parties but perhaps most significantly the fans. With the plethora of TV angles and multi-media coverage available these days, most aspects of a match can actually be better appreciated in one's armchair - especially if, for one reason or another, the fan concerned is too busy to commit to eight hours in a stadium.

The only thing that remains sacrosanct is the atmosphere. There's still no feeling quite like the "I was there" variety, but increasingly in Test matches around the world, no-one's been there. "It's been a long time since we had a decent crowd for a Test match," remarked Daniel Vettori on the eve of this match, and he wasn't playing to the gallery. England bucks the global trend because of its deep-rooted affection for the traditional form of the game, and thanks to the strength of the pound and their willingness to travel with it, the Barmy Army is welcomed with open arms wherever it roams. But for Test cricket, home audiences are thin on the ground no matter where you look.

Continue reading "Embracing the atmosphere"

	Rowers on the Waikato river © Andrew Miller

Presumably life will get livelier once the cricket gets underway, but for the time being Hamilton remains as determinedly downbeat as its southerly cousin. I find first impressions are generally fairly accurate, so when it transpired that the airport is a taxi-free zone, the nature of New Zealand's seventh-largest city became that tiny bit clearer. It took half-an-hour of loitering and three phone calls before anyone turned up to take us to town. Fortunately nobody has yet been in a hurry on this trip.

Continue reading "Wandering around Waikato"

	Iqbal Abdulla, Ravindra Jadeja and Wayne Parnell at breakfast after the final © Cricinfo Ltd

Several celebrations - the send-off they gave JJ Smuts and Ravindra Jadeja's manic sprint towards short third man after dismissing Jonathan Vandiar - were extremely charged up and none than Virat Kohli's release of emotion after India dismissed the South African wicketkeeper Bradley Barnes off the last ball of the match to win the World Cup by 12 runs.

So what happened? Was the aggression purely a pressure tactic because India were defending a low target in the adrenaline-filled atmosphere of a World Cup final? There was a bit more to it than that.

Continue reading "Rivals on-field, friends off"

	India Under-19 captain Virat Kohli holds aloft the World Cup © Getty Images

Chaos broke loose at the Kinrara Oval the moment Siddarth Kaul bowled Bradley Barnes to win India the final by 12 runs. A sizeable number of fans leapt over the boundary boards and invaded the field to congratulate the Indian players. The organisers haven't had to deal with large numbers right through the tournament and the security was sparse. The players were too busy celebrating a hard-fought win and did not see the crowd coming. Soon they were engulfed. Their thorough preparations had overlooked the best way to escape untouched in the event of a World Cup victory. A look at old video tapes of 1983 would have helped immensely.

Virat Kohli had his shirt tugged. I think he lost his cap as well and security personnel had to drag him away from the fans. Virat had been bursting with excitement moments before but looked shaken as he walked off. It was the same with the other players as they struggled to get off the field on their own, needing to be pried away from the mob by security men. Then it began to rain really hard.

Continue reading "Fans, cameras, attention"

	Gloomy scenes in Dunedin © Cricinfo Ltd.

There is a famous Billy Connolly sketch that might have been written with Dunedin in mind. During Britain's days of Empire, it was Connolly's fellow Scots who led the way in colonising the world, but in his opinion, they wouldn't have bothered to go further than the Mediterranean had they found somewhere cold enough and wet enough to remind them of home. "Further south!" was the cry every time they made landfall, but eventually, having rumbled through Africa, Asia and the Antipodes, they could go no further. And so they stopped.

And lo, they created Dunedin, the Scottish capital of the southern hemisphere. They couldn't have chosen a more appropriate resting place if they'd tried. When it's as cold and drizzly as it was for the final sessions of England's warm-up at the University Oval, Dunedin really does feel like the last place on earth. The closing overs were played out in front of a spartan crowd of thermal-hugging hardies, who wouldn't have looked out of place at The Grange in Edinburgh. It was nice weather for albatrosses, as they might say at the nearby Otago Peninsular.

Continue reading "The furthest extremity of cricket's universe"

	It was fitting that the semi-final had not been reduced to a farcical 20-over contest, and we had the fabulous infrastructure to thank for that © George Binoy

During the interval after the rain ceased and before play began, Wayne Parnell, the South African captain, and the team's media manager stood staring intently at the ground. Their attention was focused on a puddle created by the ground staff, who had mopped up water from the covers and dumped it on the outfield. It was a sizeable amount of water and the puddle was not small. However as Parnell stared at the puddle, it disappeared right before his eyes. The outfield drains so quickly at the Kinrara that a supersopper, not that they have one, is rendered redundant.

The claims from the ground staff that they could have started play in an hour on Friday evening if the monsoonal showers had stopped were not empty boasts. I woke up at 5am this morning and it was raining – a radio commentator said the showers had started at 3am. It rained incessantly until around 11am, that's about eight hours and yet the umpires strode out to call play at precisely 12.20 pm. The drainage here must rank among the best in the world.

The players had arrived at the ground before 10am and most of them were sitting inside their tents while the weather delayed the start. There was music from the South African tent while several Pakistan players took walks around the ground. The moment the rain stopped, both sets of players took the field, knowing that play would begin sooner rather than later. Somehow word got around that the match was starting and several Pakistan fans also turned up, despite the delay. It was fitting that the semi-final had not been reduced to a farcical 20-over contest, and we had the fabulous infrastructure to thank for that.