D'Arcy Waldegrave: NZC is revealing where home fans sit in the pecking order

You can’t blame New Zealand Cricket for the weather.

Last night the Australian men’s T20I team retained the Chappell-Hadlee Trophy when the 2nd of 3 matches was called off due to the aaaaah atmospheric conditions. Yeah, it rained.

The 3rd game, a dead rubber if you will, is likely to follow the same path and the series will be won by Mother Nature 2-1.

Can’t blame NZC for the weather. You can blame them for the scheduling though.

It’s almost as insane as giving McLean Park in Napier a fixture. A drought breaker if you will, a temptation for the weather gods that won’t be ignored.

The spring of cricket has hardly bounced into action. If anything, the opening salvo has recoiled. The tantalising prospect of a rare visit from the best team in the world has been dampened. Or in the case of game one, frozen out of the picture, with the players, umpires, ground staff, commentary teams, and crowd left asking themselves hard questions. For the crowd, the primary question would have been: why did we bother?

NZC has backed themselves into this corner, desperate to provide the national side with time in the middle before next year's World Cup (yup, another one) whilst juggling the demands of franchise T20 cricket and essentially ignoring the concept of a summer of cricket, the traditional season in which we celebrate and immerse ourselves in the game.

To be fair, NZC is a cork in the cricketing waters, and they do a reasonable job of making some acceptable purses from the pig's ear they've been given. But when the cream of the touring matches are set down for spring and the Proteus tour and the only real inbound summer action is confined to 5 ODIs, one wonders where the home fans sit in the pecking order. Evidentially, over the last few summers, based on scheduling, not as high up the chain as we’d like. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the All Sport Breakfast podcast with Darcy
Waldgrave from News Talk SEDB.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
You can't blame New Zealand Cricket for the weather. Last
night the Ossie Men's T twenty item retained the Chapel
Hadley Trophy when the second of three matches caught off
due to atmospheric conditions. Yeah, it rained. The third game
a dead rubber, if you will, It is likely to

(00:34):
follow the same path, although the forecast I am led
to believe said maybe it won't. There's a wee bit
written it maybe whatever, it doesn't matter. But what is
probably going to happen is the series is going to
be won by Mother Nature. Two one. You can't blame
New Zealand Cricket for the weather, but you can blame
them for the scheduling. It's almost as insane as giving

(00:56):
mc claim park in Napier fixture a drought breaker, if
you will, a temptation for the weather gods that will
not be ignored. He it doesn't rain there the sun
wrecks things go figure. The spring of Cricket has hardly
bounced into action. If anything, the opening Salvos recoiled the
tantalizing prospect of a rare visit from the best team

(01:18):
in the world has been damped, or, in the case
of Game one, frozen out of the picture, with the
players and the umpires and the ground staff, the garments,
teams and the crowd left asking themselves some pretty hard questions.
For the crowd, the primary question would be why do
we bother The said a credit have backed themselves into
this corner, desperate to provide the national side with time

(01:41):
in the middle before next year's World Cup. Yep, yep,
another one. They're doing this while they're juggling the demands
of franchised T twenty cricket. We should just call it
payday cricket, really, shouldn't we, and essentially ignoring the concept
of a summer of cricket, the traditional season in which

(02:02):
we celebrate and immerse our selves in the game. To
be fair and his own, cricket is a cork and
the cricketing waters, and they do a reasonable job of
making some acceptable purses from the pigs ere they've been given.
But when the cream of the touring matches are set
down for spring and the proteuce tour, the only real

(02:23):
inbound summer action is combined to five one day internationals.
One wonders where the home fans sit in the pecking order. Evidentally,
over the last few summers based on scheduling, not as
high up the chain as we'd like. That'll do.

Speaker 1 (02:41):
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