Filling The Basin

On Sunday, we headed down to Wellington’s cricket ground, the Basin Reserve, for a charity fundraiser for the Christchurch earthquake. Two guest teams had been assembled from cricketers past and present, and a few rugby players and actors, some of whom were in New Zealand for the filming of The Hobbit. Amongst those present either playing, coaching or umpiring were:

Shane Warne

Sir Richard Hadlee

Nathan Astle

Martin Crowe

Russell Crowe

Sir Ian McKellen

Martin Freeman

James Nesbitt

Ritchie McCaw

Tana Umaga

The Reserve was full (unlike on other occasions when we’d been there to watch the cricket) and a large proportion of the crowd were wearing the red & black that Canterbury’s cricket and rugby teams play in.

Shot, Bro!

There was entertainment before the game got underway, in the form of Jason Kerrison, singer from NZ band Op Shop, who gave us a couple of tunes. Then, after a minute’s silence, the national anthem was sung by Kristin Darragh.

And then the game began. Although it was a “friendly” match, no quarter was being given…but as there was a $1,000 bonus being offered for every boundary scored, there waren’t many lunges to stop the fours reaching the rope. Unless, that is, you were the twelfth man, who’d paid top dollar on Trademe for the privilege, and who made a heroic diving stop to save one such boundary.

Tana Umaga, former All Blacks captain, had a bowl, and took the wicket of McMillan, one of Christchurch’s stalwart batsmen; before taking a stunning catch and dismissing Dion Nash for a duck in the next over. He’s no slouch, and the Black Caps should keep an eye on him…!

At half time, there was the promised encounter between Shane Warne and Prime Minister John Key. The first ball was a tricky one…

Warne delivers his trademark underarm ball to the PM

After that, Warne bowled properly (-ish), but the PM was up to the task, and hit him to the boundary twice, with his attempt to hit a six off the final ball of the over bouncing just inside the rope.

After the break, Wellington came in to chase the 225 total set by the Cantabrians. It looked like a hopeless task, and, although they managed one over with 3 sixes and two fours, they were (in typical Wellington style) always behind the required run rate, and finished up with 215.

Yet another good day out at the Reserve, and all in a good cause, with over half a million dollars raised on the day.