Now, it may not be everyone’s idea of fun or their way to spend five days, but the recently ending New Zealand versus England second test match in the cricket in sunny Wellington certainly lived up to my expectations and beyond.

Cricket, often seen as a bit of a boring sport with many people questioning why they play for five days and the game can still be drawn, attracted more than 75,000 (SEVENTY-FIVE THOUSAND) people over the five days, with over two thirds of those barmy English fans. I am glad I am not alone, although I was getting worried.

Without elaborating too much, England won on the morning of the fifth day defeating the hosts quite convincingly to level the three match series. With the tie nicely poised at one all, the final tests takes place in Napier, the north-west of the north island starting this Saturday. More about that one in a minute.

So, other than a bit of a tan, a lot of cricket and a few cheeky beverages to quench the thirst what else has this Barmy Army cricket fan been up to?

Well, I have now been in ‘wicked’ Wellington for a week. Five of those days taken up by the cricket, the rest involving a great day at the beach, several games of Texas holdem poker, a great time in one of the best Hostels I think I have stayed in (Worldwide Backpackers) and the company of some even better people. I have had a couple of night’s out too but keep that one quiet!

Having left the cricket ground yesterday at 1 p.m. local time I could not resist the temptation on offer in Napier. So, along with quite a few more Barmy Army fans I am coaching it to the north and enduring what promises to be a further five days of action-packed drama that cricket has to offer.

I leave on Friday afternoon, return to Wellington the Thursday after before flying to Christchurch the next day. From there I depart on the Kiwi Experience bus travelling around the south Island, eventually heading back to the north to Auckland three weeks later.

Times are hard, but someone has to do it.

Right, I cannot sign off without briefly explaining the rules of cricket and why it is so DAMN exciting.

- Played over five days (test match) with each side bowling twice and batting twice. These are known as the 1st and 2nd innings, i.e. England bat for their first innings, New Zealand then bat for their first innings, England then bat for their second innings … get the idea?

- You normally have four specialist bowlers, six specialist batsmen and one who is fairly good at both. All eleven players bat, although normally only five of them bowl all though all of them technically can.

- Each bowler bowls six balls (one over) before his mate takes over at the other end of the pitch. Each bowler can bowl as many overs as they want.

- The winning side is the one that scores the highest combined batting score over their two innings and takes 20 wickets, i.e. bowling out all the batsman in both innings.

- It is great fun, drama and excitement because, briefly, players drop the ball when it doesn’t seem possible, they then catch the ball when it seems completely impossible, they smack the ball with their bat at such force that their power and precision defies belief and watching the way the bowlers spin the ball, make it move through the air and the sound of it knocking over the stumps is, for me, simply thrilling.

Right, now you are all convinced of what a damn fantastic game this is, why not check out the England fans website, known as the Barmy Army, at www.barmyarmy.com?

See you in Napier?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 18th, 2008 at 4:52 am and is filed under On the move, New Zealand. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.