Sunburnt on a cloudy day, and Wellington scrape home
Yesterday was my second-to-last chance to see live cricket this summer. It was also my second chance to see live etc, due to some strange scheduling of State Shield matches (dear NZ Cricket - many of us have jobs where we work on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, so maybe scheduling the games for the weekend might be an idea) and the understandable
cancellation of the Sri Lankan tour.
So I head down to the Basin to watch Wellington play Auckland, and I'm lucky enough that James, Damian and Anthony join me. I'm sometimes a little wary of putting Damian and Ants together, but they always seem to get on OK, so perhaps I'm over-reacting. A good time was had, anyway, and Rhonda turned up right at the end so we could go drink with Drake and Casey. Which was a fun night, mainly because my pool skills were out of this world. I've always been a pretty random pool player, capable of missing easy shots and then effortlessly nailing a ball from an odd angle at the other end of the table. This night, though, everything went my way. Everything I tried for came off, I had luck coming out my eyeballs as well. It was beautiful. It also greatly upset Rob (Drake's friend) who had been telling us what a great player he was. On a normal day, he'd have beaten me, but tonight he didn't come close.
Oh, the match?
Wellington won, but made hard work of it. The pitch was terribly slow, no-one really looked comfortable on it, and it was a day for dogged knocks rather than graceful ones. Rob Nicol got 50 out of Auckland's 183, and Wellington looked to be doing it easily when Fleming and Nevin scored 51 for the first wicket in ten overs. Fleming was fooled by Mills' slower ball and caught and bowled, and Wellington collapsed. The game slowed down to a crawl as Wellington struggled against Canning's medium pacers. Luckily for both Wellington and my credibility Pasapati scored a late 38 with some big hits off Walker and Adams, and we won in the last over.
It isn't going to be a good season though: Wellington have lost too many good players (Jones and Hitchcock to Auckland, Donaldson retired and Walker quit after falling out with the coach) and have too many journeymen or sub-par players. Jesse Ryder will hopefully fulfil some of his promise, but he won't be enough to hold up a top order that looks very weak (he made 15 today and looked good, but it wasn't a pitch for stroke-makers). Bell can't seem to buy a run, the Parlane brothers are only average, Fleming will be with the national team most of the season. Franklin is never going to be a number 6 (why he's batting above Woodcock, who's played two decent holding innings in succession, I can't see - especially as Woodcock isn't bowling). The bowling is weak apart from Franklin, though Patel tries hard and seems hard to score from. Sigh. At least Wellington has a rugby team.
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