Quarter Final

Wellington was hosting its final game of the ICC cricket world cup today – the last quarterfinal. The previous three had been decided on Wednesday (South Africa beat Sri Lanka by 9 wickets in Sydney), Thursday (India beat Bangladesh by 109 runs in Melbourne), and Friday (Australia beat Pakistan by 6 wickets in Adelaide). New Zealand faced the West Indies at the Wellington Regional Stadium (formerly Westpac stadium), with a 2pm start for a day-night game.  

2pm start, you say? Why, that’s just enough time to go for a cricket long lunch at one of our favoured Wellington venues. First up, we thought we’d give Mariluca a try – hadn’t been there before, looks good. “No, we’re not open on Saturday lunchtime” came the reply. Odd, as they’re participating in the promotion. Next, I thought Trade Kitchen would be a good idea, but Nicola didn’t fancy their menu much. We finally settled on Zibibbo, about whom I so often say “the most under-rated restaurant in Wellington”…and yes, they were happy to accommodate us.

We parked up close to the stadium, then walked back into town along the seafront, to get our lunch. It was lovely: paua tortellini to start:

Followed by lamb on crushed potatoes:

And finished with pavlova: 

Menus don’t get more Kiwi than this. Surprisingly, we were the only people taking advantage of this offer, although there was a large party downstairs in the bistro/bar area. As always, the food was delicious, and we left happy for the walk up to the stadium.

Enough of this fine dining already…time to head to the match. We made it through the scrum that is the bag check and found our seats with about 10 minutes to spare, and settled in to watch.

New Zealand had won the toss and decided to bat. Captain McCullum came out to bat in his usual style, blazing away from the start. Unfortunately he was out on 12, and at 27/1 the Black Caps needed to calm down a bit. Which they duly did, and Martin Guptill and Kane Williamson put on another 52 before Williamson holed out to Chris Gayle, after a bit of a juggle. In came Ross Taylor, and then things really started to happen. Guptill made a somewhat cautious 100 off 111 deliveries, but then started to let rip; and with Taylor taking a back seat, supporting role, they made a partnership of 143. Guptill regularly put the ball into the crowd (and at one point out of the stadium). Despite losing Taylor, he was ably supported again by Anderson, Elliot and Ronchi as he made 237 from 163 balls, carrying his bat and setting a World Cup record, and the second-highest ODI score ever. New Zealand finished on 393.

What do you do about that, if you’re the West Indies? You need almost 8 an over from the get-go. Their response was to put Chris Gayle in to open, and he dismissed the fast bowlers with disdain. He was clearly in pain from his back injury, and was definitely not keen on running between the wickets. He didn’t need to much, as with a flick of the wrist he dispatched the ball to the boundary time after time, usually as a six. He reached 50 quickly (a total that included 2 singles – all the other scoring shots were boundaries), but lost 4 partners along the way - including a spectacular one-handed catch by Daniel Vettori on the boundary. And this was their downfall; whilst they continually put pressure on the Black Caps bowlers and kept up with the run rate, wickets continued to fall, and once Gayle was bowled by Milne for 61 (8 sixes, 2 fours), the end was inevitable. The lower order continued to bat valiantly, but an inability to build a significant partnership despite scoring better than the top-order batsmen undid them, and the final one went as the Windies reached 250, giving New Zealand the victory by 143 runs.

On Tuesday, The Black Caps face South Africa in Auckland. On this form, the Proteas should be quaking in their boots.

Cricket Round-Up

Well, that was an action-packed weekend!

In what was being billed as the clash of the World Cup (so far), Australia played New Zealand at Eden Park in Auckland. At first, it seemed like it was going to be what could be described as a “normal” one-day match, with Australia comfortably cruising to 80 for 1 in 12 overs, before losing their second wicket. And then…disaster. Australia lost their next 7 wickets in a 9 over period, for 26 runs, ending at 106/9 after 22 overs. The final pair put on 45 before the last wicket was taken, giving Australia a paltry 151 all out. Trent Boult did most of the damage, with figures of 5 for 27 from his 10 overs, but including 5 for 3 in his second 5-over spell.

So far, so good. New Zealand have chased down low totals twice already in the World Cup – Scotland (142) and England (123). But they’d not reckoned on Mitchell Starc. As wicket after wicket fell in a steady procession, it looked like New Zealand were in danger of running out of wickets before they managed to accumulate the runs. When Ronchi was out for 6 runs, leaving the Black Caps with one batsman and the bowlers still to come, on 139 for 6, I thought they’d bring it home. After all, Daniel Vettori was next in, and he usually steers the Black Caps through a crisis with a steady hand. He was out for 2, and New Zealand still needed 7 runs to win.

Suddenly, it’s looking a bit precarious. With three wickets remaining, Kane Williamson decided to take a single on the second ball of the 23^rd over. This exposed Adam Milne to Starc’s bowling for potentially four balls. He only needed one. 6 runs needed, and only 2 wickets remaining, out comes Tim Southee to face the remaining three balls of the over. Again, Starc only needed one, as he chopped it onto his own wicket. The last batsman, Trent Boult, had to face two deliveries whilst Kane Williamson was trapped, hopelessly, at the non-striker’s end.

He survived them. Finally, Williamson was back on strike, and facing Pat Cummins. He put the first ball into the crowd to finish off the match in style.

So that was a bit close! But a win’s a win, and New Zealand have 4 from 4, with only Bangladesh and Afghanistan to face in the group.

The next big match of the weekend was in Wellington: England vs. Sri Lanka. It was an 11:00 start, so we decided to go and get a big breakfast at Jano Bistro first – having been impressed by their dinner a couple of weeks ago, I was also impressed by their breakfast: no “pile it on a plate” higgledy-piggledy-ness from them – it was all artfully presented on the plate, and very well cooked.

We were able to park a bit closer to the stadium this time, as (a) the game wasn’t sold out and (b) as it was a weekend, the commuter car parks were all empty.

England won the toss and went in to bat first. This match followed a more traditional one-day format, unlike New Zealand’s matches, where the team batting first actually manage to bat out their 50 overs, and amass a reasonable score. After starting well, England had looked a bit sluggish through the middle overs, regularly scoring only two or three per over. I was predicting a total of 276, until they woke up a bit in the final seven overs and started to slap the ball around the ground, putting on 77 to finish with a respectable score of 309 to bowl at.

Out came Sri Lanka, and they were ready to bat. The openers, Dilshan and Thirimanne, steadily put on runs until Dilshan was out for 44. Still, at 100 after 19 overs, they were well in touch with the run rate, and then Sangakkara  came in. They kept the runs ticking over at a reasonable rate in the middle period, and then started to slowly accelerate, with Sangakkara in particular regularly reaching the boundary. Thirimanne reached his century, shortly followed by Sangakkara, and it seemed there was nothing the England bowlers could do to get them out. In this they weren’t helped by their fielders, who dropped them with distressing regularity. Sri Lanka eventually cruised home with 16 balls to spare, finishing in style by putting another 6 into the crowd.

Another terrible day to watch cricket

England have two tough games ahead of them now: Bangladesh and Afghanistan, both in Australia. Whilst you’d think that there’d be no danger of either of these teams beating England, on current form you wouldn’t put it past them. England must also be wary about the weather: a washout could scupper their chances of reaching the quarter finals.

Cricket Long Lunch

Before heading down to the cricket on Friday, we took advantage of Logan Brown’s cricket Long Lunch. A number of venues are offering special lunches during the ICC World Cup, when there are matches on in Wellington - from Logan Brown and Zibibbo at the top end, to more "pub grub" establishments such as The Old Bailey and D4. 

We arrived in good time, and immediately ordered two of their special cocktails – “The Geoffrey Boycott” – a double serving including a vanilla vodka, strawberry coulis, egg white and sparkling rosé, and a frozen Pimms with mint and fruit.

The first course was a selection of tapas – we demolished these before I thought to take a picture. Oh well. The air-cured beef was particularly good…well, it was all good, but the beef stood out. The bloody mary shots were nice and spicy, and that’s the way I like it. We also shared a bowl of olives and garlic – I had the olives, Nicola had the garlic.

The main course was a pork porchetta – a rolled pork belly roast with a pineapple salsa, with an apple and watercress  salad. Very well cooked, it was delicious and moist. Washed down with a glass of Palliser Estate chardonnay (me) and Wild Earth Riesling (‘er).

The dessert was a vanilla custard topped with cherries, and served with almond shortbread.

We finished up in good time to walk up to the stadium to watch the cricket match. New Zealand won, in case I hadn’t mentioned that already.

Cricket World Cup

The Cricket World Cup started last weekend, kicking off with New Zealand against Sri Lanka in Christchurch. Sri Lanka were once a formidable team, indeed they were runners-up in 2007 and 2011. However, they had just completed a tour of New Zealand before the World Cup in which they were royally trounced by the Black Caps, so there was an expectation that they would again crumble.

They did. The Black Caps set a target of 331, and then bowled the Sri Lankans out for 233 in the chase.

Next up for New Zealand were minnows Scotland, and again there was an expectation that the Black Caps would polish them off without difficulty. Bowled out for 142 in 36.2 overs (having recovered from an abysmal start of 1 for 2 (and that a wide) and 12 for 4), the Scots then put up a bit of a fight with the ball. Some of the Black Caps rather threw their wickets away in an attempt to speed up the process, but with the steadying hand of Daniel Vettori they eventually got the required runs with 3 wickets and 25 overs to spare.

And so, to England. This would be the first real opposition, and test, for a Black Caps team that had so far dealt with everything that had come their way recently with relative ease. Over the last 12 months or so, they’ve seen off Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan and the West Indies, as well as dealing to South Africa in a warm-up match a couple of weeks ago, by a massive 134 runs. But England? That’s a different story. This would be a sell-out game, in Wellington’s “Regional Stadium” (brand name having been removed for the duration of the competition, as they aren’t sponsors), so I’d booked tickets early.

We went for an early lunch at Logan Brown, who were putting on a Cricket Special lunch, including cocktails (of which more later).

There’s no parking at the stadium when there’s a major event, as the council close off the whole area to traffic, so we’d parked quite a way away in town. The walk up to the stadium took us a while and we missed the opening overs. No matter, things seemed to be progressing steadily, with England in to bat. As I said, we were expecting a tightly-fought match, so missing a few overs wasn’t a problem. As we arrived there was a roar from the crowd - the first wicket, Ian Bell, had fallen in the fifth over. England were 31 for 1.

Phew! What a scorcher! A loveley day for cricket in Wellington

What happened next? The Black Caps bowled England out for 123 in 33.2 overs.

Let’s just let that sink in for a bit. England scored fewer runs than Scotland managed. Tim Southee took 7 wickets for 33 runs, a record for a world-cup match.

But let’s not get too complacent, eh? I mean, Scotland managed to take 7 wickets while New Zealand chased down the total, and England have some world-class bowlers like Chris Broad and James Anderson. New Zealand came in to bat straight away, due to some weird rules imposed by the ICC (see below).

The first surprise was that one of the usual openers had been replaced by captain Brendon McCullum. The next surprise was that he, with a little help from Martin Guptill at the other end, proceeded to smack the ball around, treating the bowlers with contempt. After a gentle opening over of 9 runs, in the next over they took 18. Following overs maintained this rate, including one memorable over bowled by Finn, from which McCullum hit four consecutive sixes (there was also a four and a single from Guptill, giving 29 from the over).

At this point, we started to do some maths. Could he break the world record for fastest century (set by AB de Villiers just last month in Johannesburg) of 31 balls? It looked possible, but only if Guptill didn't score any more runs. It wasn't the rate at which McCullum was scoring that was the problem, but the fact that they were fast running out of runs to take in the chase! On 72 (from 21 balls) this looked just about doable - he needed 28 more runs, and they were 28 runs behind England's total.

As it turned out, this was a moot point, as he was bowled a few balls later, for 77. He had, however, got the fastest 50 in a world cup match, in 18 balls.

Guptill's poles got knocked down a few balls later, and it was left to the staid, calm hands of Williamson and Taylor to bring the total home (to non-Kiwis: this is a joke).

But wait...there was one final twist. With New Zealand needing just 12 runs to win, the umpires took the bails off, and everyone trooped in for the innings break, to boos resounding around the stadium. Why? the explanation given is that it's in the ICC rulebook, to ensure that all matches are played to the same schedule, in case of rain or other stoppages. Frankly, that's a load of bollocks - it's all to do with the commercial realities of the game. There are certain events that need to take place in the innings break, sponsored by, er, sponsors.  Here's an idea, ICC: if a side doesn't bat their 50 overs, why not take the innings break when they're all out? As it is, the commercial reality for the stadium is that they've lost out on a lot of revenue from eating and drinking fans...money which was doubtless spent in the bars of Courtenay Place and environs instead.

Anyway, this was a serious trouncing for England. As William Woodfull said, "there are two teams out there, only one of them is playing cricket". Only England know what game England thought they were playing. Tiddlywinks, perhaps?

New Zealand have won 3 from 3 now, and still have to face Afghanistan, Australia and Bangladesh. Australia have already whupped England's asses, but they had to play a game of cricket to do so. The match between Australia and New Zealand, in Auckland next weekend, is going to be interesting.

Force Majeure

Having had our dinner at Jano Bistro, we then nipped down the road to the Michael Fowler Centre to see the main event of the evening, Eddie Izzard’s Force Majeure.

Spoiler alert: If you’ve not seen Force Majeure, and are waiting for the DVD, (a) it’s been out since 2013, so really, get your act together; and (b) if you don’t want to know who did it, stop reading now.

After greeting us and catching up on a bit of local history (the Duke of Wellington’s famous encounter with Napoleon at the battle of Auckland, shortly before the battle of Austerlitz), he explained how he’d been taking this show around the world, in some cases delivering it in the native language (French, German, Spanish and Russian). In some cases where he didn’t speak the language too well he learnt his lines like a play.

And then, into the body of the show. He covers his usual themes, with digressions into philosophy, Roman leaders, use of flags, people called Steve (unless they’re called Jeff), human sacrifice, dressage, and lots of godlessness. Chickens featured much more than in previous shows that I’ve seen, including as military advisors. There was also a lot more singing than is customary. We laughed. How we laughed.

But did we laugh correctly? Is Eddie Izzard as funny as he used to be? It’s difficult to tell. I think we’ve become used to Eddie Izzard, so things that were once frighteningly original now seem expected, even obvious. Yes, Mark Anthony is a chicken (an actual chicken, not just someone who runs away a lot). But is that as funny as putting horseshoes on a duck? The show didn’t tie everything up in one glorious knot with the interconnectedness of everything being finally revealed as in previous shows. And yes, I think we’ve known for years that the Indian accent sounds a bit like the Welsh accent. He also recycled a tale about stealing make-up that he’s used before (in Definite Article, I think).

As he’s got older, he’s got more serious. In his early shows, there would be no topical political references. These have crept in (notably his rants against the royal family), and he now spends more time on his personal political beliefs, particularly about Europe, which aren’t actually comedy. It may be time for him to hang up his comedy hat and start his political career.

Jano Bistro

As is our habit, we decided to go out for an early dinner before going to see the evening’s entertainment. On Sunday, we were off to see Eddie Izzard, who is on the final leg of his two-year Force Majeure tour.

We’d recently been to The Bresolin for lunch, and on the way had spotted a new place, Jano Bistro, a few doors down. This is up at the unfashionable end of Willis Street, but it looks like more and more places are opening up around there (Tuatara Brewery have recently opened a bar, The Third Eye, round the corner as well). “looks good, must give it a try” we thought.

A couple of weeks later, it was reviewed in the Dominion Post, and got a resounding thumbs up. Turns out the chef is from the recently-closed Le Canard, which was a more traditional French bistro in Thorndon (and now a burger bar). So I booked it for dinner.

The menu is minimal – three starters, four mains, three desserts, and the descriptions equally minimal: none of your waffly “a soufflé of champagne-soaked truffle with watercress foam” or any of that malarkey. Take this example: 

PORK: free-range | Celeriac | Black pudding | Cider jus.

We started with eggplant (it looked a lot like an aubergine to me, but what the hey) and pork (done slightly different to the above description – the menu changes on a regular and frequent basis):

I was tempted by the catch of the day, but eventually settled on the beef - sirloin and slow-cooked rib, with confit tomatoes, olives, polenta, and garlic puree:

Nicola had the lamb:

And, because we’d told the waitress at the beginning that we had a show to get to, they’d been fairly prompt about bringing out the dishes, so we had time for a pudding. I went for the obvious chocolate:

Usually, when asking about chocolate puddings, I ask the waiter whether it's Katy Perry (light and fluffy) or Paris Hilton (rich and thick). This one was both, but it was the Paris Hilton bit that was the best. 

And Nicola took the cherries:

This really is top-class stuff, not what you’d call “bistro” at all (not that I’ve got anything against bistro food, but I associate it more with well–cooked but more, well, “rustic” presentation). Over the past few months, several of Wellington’s higher-end restaurants have closed (Martin Bosley, Ambeli, Le Carnard, White House, Crazy Horse). Some of these have re-opened in a new incarnation (Whitebait, for example) but with a  more informal menu, but it’s nice to see someone open an unashamedly top-class restaurant again. Together with Matterhorn’s recent decision to move back into a standard restaurant format, it’s good to see a resurgence of this type of dining, away from “informal” “shared plates” style. Dammit, I don’t want to share my plate with anyone!

This place will be up there with the likes of Ortega Fish Shack and The Larder in terms of food, presentation, innovation and quality.

Richard III

Richard III is a long play by modern standards. The Bacchanals’ production at BATS Theatre therefore started early, at 7:00pm, to accommodate their 3-hour run time.

This posed a challenge for our dining arrangements, as we were going to be in a bit of a hurry. We booked Whitebait – the new restaurant opened by the owners of The White House, which closed last November. This is located on the new development of the Overseas Terminal in Wellington, and is an up-market (mainly) seafood restaurant. Wellington needs one of these since Martin Bosley’s establishment in the Royal Port Nicholson Yacht Club closed earlier last year. Fortunately the Overseas Terminal – or Clyde Quay as we should now call it – is only 5 minutes’ walk from BATS.

We got there promptly. The restaurant has a big glass-fronted dining room, which, given Wellington’s usual climate, doesn’t normally pose a problem. However, over the last few days Wellington has been basking in sunshine, so it was quite hot by the window.

Can you spot Nicola in here?

We both ordered cold starters – crab salad for me and stuffed courgette flowers for Nicola, followed by herb-crusted bluenose and roasted snapper. The fish was cooked to absolute perfection, with the segments just sliding apart. Having mentioned to the waitress our deadline at the beginning, we found ourselves with time for a dessert, so I had a strawberry cheesecake with basil sorbet, and Nicola had a rosewater sorbet with asti and strawberry meringue.

My verdict? It was all good. It was all well presented. But it wasn’t no Martin Bosley, and I think you get more bang for your buck from Ortega Fish Shack.

So, off we toddled to the BATS theatre. The production was being staged in the Dome part of the theatre, which is the largest performing space. The actors are all out on stage at the beginning, and from the look of it we may have been the only people there who weren’t friends or family of someone in the cast.   

The production was minimalist – some of the characters were in period costume, others in jeans or suits. The stage dressing consisted of a throne at one end, and a scaffolding tower at the other, from which some parts were staged. Otherwise, apart from a National Party election poster where the face of Richard had been stuck over that of John Key, there was no real decoration. A few rather heavy-handed references were also made to the recent election during the play.

All in all, it had a studenty, agit-prop feeling. There was a lot of overacting, shouty deliverance, and contrived expressions, which rather detracted from the performance. At times they seemed to be rather rushing through their lines, which actually I was thankful for, as it got us to the end quicker. Definitely not the best production of a Shakespeare play that I've seen.

We shall of course continue to patronise the BATS theatre ("you're not a bad little theatre for your size", roffle) but I think I might steer clear of The Bacchanals.