Slightly Intrepid

28 February 2015

The old rivalry

If you have a long cricketing memory, you will remember that time in 1946 when the mighty Australian cricket team, flushed with the joys of Allied victory in World War 2, deigned to play little New Zealand in a one-off test at the Basin Reserve. It was the first time Australia had been willing to play New Zealand in a test, despite the smaller country having been playing test cricket since 1930. Predictably, given the imbalance in experience and talent, the test was a massacre, with New Zealand dismissed for 42 and 54 and Australia winning by an innings and 103 runs in only two days. There the Allied spirit ended, because following that victory Australia would not play New Zealand in another test match for 27 years, or indeed any sort of international match. New Zealand was simply not worthy of Australia's time. Naturally, the lack of exposure to the world's top team limited the growth of the New Zealand team and was part of the reason it took many, many years for New Zealand to establish any sort of consistency in test cricket.

Now consider today's pivotal ODI at Eden Park between the joint hosts of the 2015 Cricket World Cup, Australia and New Zealand. It will hopefully be a tremendous occasion. But if you examine the record books, it can be seen that increasingly we are returning to the days when Australia avoided playing New Zealand as much as possible. In the last five years New Zealand has played 97 ODIs, and Australia sits low in the table of opponents, alongside Bangladesh and Zimbabwe:

ODIs opponents, past 5 years	No.
Sri Lanka	20
Pakistan	14
India	12
South Africa	10
West Indies	9
England	8
Australia	7
Bangladesh	7
Zimbabwe	7
Canada	1
Kenya	1
Scotland	1

The regular ODI rivalries of old, where New Zealand toured Australia regularly and often popped up in the ODI tri-series, is a thing of the past. Shamefully, New Zealand has not been permitted to play an ODI in Australia since a five-match Chappell-Hadlee series in February 2009, six years ago. (The series was drawn 2-2). And Australia has not played ODIs in New Zealand since a five-match Chappell-Hadlee return series in March 2010, which Australia won 3-2.

Perhaps this will generate some slight advantage for New Zealand, given that the Australian squad will have comparatively little experience playing New Zealand or playing at Eden Park. But ultimately it seems like a great shame that two neighbouring countries play cricket together so infrequently, and I would argue, to the detriment of both.

26 February 2015

Shipowners and the 1951 waterfront lockout

The 1951 waterfront lockout - 'the big blue' - still casts a shadow over New Zealand history. Robert Chapman suggested that smashing the unions 'was eventually to transfer the role of being the normal party of government from Labour to National'. Most commentators have also focused on the political fight between the government and the unions. Recently, though, Anna Green has put the shipowners back into the picture, highlighting their stevedoring operations. Stevedores organise and supervise the loading and discharge of ships and it was an extremely profitable business. In 1937 Shaw Savill said that 'stevedoring paid the SS and A Co. so handsomely that they would not lightly abandon it'. Geo H Scales Pacific did very well out of stevedoring in the postwar years. Yet despite the profitability of stevedoring, the lines paid its supervisors badly and went to counter-productive lengths to cut costs. According to Green, 'In pursuit of maximum profits, the shipping companies engaged in a policy of minimum investment on the waterfront. Ambitious to secure a fast turnaround in port while employing the cheapest possible labour, they came into constant conflict with the waterside workers, culminating in the extremely damaging dispute of 1951'.

- Gavin McLean, Captain's Log: New Zealand's Maritime History, Auckland, 2001, p.158-9.

For more on the dispute, see the above-quoted Anna Green, British Capital, Antipodean Labour: Working the New Zealand Waterfront 1915-1951, University of Otago Press, Dunedin, 2001.

25 February 2015

A former sub-editor's favourite typos

There have been innumerable "typos" (typographical errors) that have tickled [former Evening Post sub-editor Stephen Moffatt's] fancy over the years, and many that have made the blood boil or resulted in less-than-friendly emails or phone conversations.

"A reporter covering a sheep sale rang the story through to the office and it emerged that there had been a good yarding of 'two-tooth youths'.

"Jewels have often featured: 'the man had a $75,000 18-carrot gold diamond ring'; and 'the British high commissioner got his jewels back, including a $30,000 diamond neckless'.

"Following a fatal accident involving a horse: 'the horse was granted name suppression'.

"We've had a headline, on a story about a school playground, referring to a 'jungle jim'; we've had the Pope 'beautifying' three nuns in a headline; and another headline, on a yarn about a meat company boss, referring to him as 'meat head'.

- 'Long-time journalist a witness to many changes', Dominion Post, 21 February 2015

24 February 2015

NZ459 AKL-WLG timelapse

Two brief time-lapse videos of takeoff and landing this afternoon on Air New Zealand's NZ459 from Auckland to Wellington. It was a smooth trip in an Airbus A320, and a great day for flying. And before you ask, there's no problem using your phone like this on an A320, as long as it's turned onto flight mode and has wi-fi and Bluetooth turned off.

21 February 2015

NZ v England, Wellington

Carnage. A day-night match that was wrapped up even before the stadium lights were required. Fewer than 50 overs needed for both innings. The best ODI bowling by a New Zealander, and the fastest fifty in World Cup history. So dominant was New Zealand in their eight wicket win over England, fans actually left the ground early rather than wait around for the winning runs to be struck. Whatever England is doing with its ODI team at the moment, it's certainly not working. But with individual performances akin to Tim Southee's 9-0-33-7 (which led to this crowd chant in his last over) and Brendon McCullum's boundary-laden 77 from 25 balls, nothing should detract from the utter ruthless dominance that New Zealand displayed. I can't quite bring myself to believe it, but perhaps the confidence this side has built up will actually allow them to compete with the likes of Australia and South Africa in this World Cup.

Southee bowls from the northern end

A full house at the Stadium

Yet another McCullum boundary

For what turned out to be a historic match, it was a bit disappointing to see the intrusion of ICC meddling, which diluted some of the presence and spectacle of the match. While the camera-work was tolerable, the absence of the steady-cam lady who zooms around on a Segway reminded attendees that Star TV have excluded nearly all of the excellent local TV crews in favour of imported cut-rate contractors. New Zealand camera crews are, I think, amongst the best in the world. But ultimately Star is able to do this because the Government specifically legislated to allow visa exemptions for events like this.

A source of much crowd dissatisfaction was the pig-headed decision to enforce a mandatory 45-minute dinner break during the New Zealand chase, despite the home team requiring only 12 further runs to win the game. At that stage the New Zealand run rate was a whopping 12.4, so if there had been a moment of sanity the game could have been allowed to play on and conclude within a mere handful of deliveries. Instead the Stadium resounded to a chorus of booing and perhaps a third of the crowd departed, robbing the huge win of some of the crowd support it deserved.

And during the unwanted innings break the likeable comedian Ben Hurley, who is often entertaining during New Zealand matches, had to compère a pointless foot race between spectators dressed up in giant costumes depicting World Cup sponsors: a giant TV, an inflatable soft-drink bottle, a mammoth trainer. A proud moment for international cricket, this was not. In fact, the somewhat sour taste of the enforced intermission was summed up by the sight of TV commentators Ian Smith, Shane Warne and Ian Botham preparing for their pieces to camera by the boundary, with the glimpse of a spectator's outstretched middle digits protruding into the shot.

Smith, Warne & Botham, and an unimpressed fan

Perhaps they were on day release

@CWCWhiteboard's message to the England fans