I love it - ah!

Can’t get interest up for Super 14 still. Maybe it will return at the semis stage, but with so much rugby during the year now (the NZ v Australia Bledisloe Cup Test in Wellington is not until the 19th of September!) I have been soaking up the cricket series against India, and enjoying radio commentary of it.

Coming back to New Zealand to live earlier this year, there was a clear list of things I wanted to experience again. I wanted to drink some Emerson’s Bookbinder, eat a decent Malaysian curry with Roti bread, mow a lawn, make local phone calls for free, go to the beach (not the “seaside”) ... and spend a day at the Basin Reserve, watching Test cricket from the embankment. Well, check that last one off.

I’ve seen the MCG, been to Lords and The Oval ... but our Basin is in a class of its own as a rare ground that retains some much of the village green flavour. It may in truth be a roundabout for State Highway 1, but its unique layout allows spectators to walk 360 degrees around the ground and lean over the pickets begging autographs off resting fast bowlers. What other cricket ground in the world has a layout that lets conga lines of visiting fans (whether Barmy or Bhaji Army) loop around it all day? And what other sports ground lets kids get out there and play on the pitch in the interval? Its a throwback, and a glorious one.

It does have a big flash replay screen now (gone is the ‘ransom note’ scoreboard of ten years ago), but the bank remains untouched, where fans of both teams mingle, and families can giggle at hopped up rogues. And I have not even mentioned the hotdogs - another Kiwi delicacy I was keen to reconnect with.

Loved it. Though typical of Wellington these days ... the queue at the espresso stand was 3 times as long as the beer shack. If they can sell that much caffeine at a five day test, what will they sell to T20 fans? P?

The Indians may have lacked the killer instinct to put us away on the last day and, but they showed their class constantly ... and again New Zealand struggled to concentrate for five days. That’s fine. We punch well above our weight in cricket, we always have. And now that lucrative career earnings are possible via the IPL for our top players, we may well forge a crop of true world class players. Competing in Tests may well continue to be a struggle, but I have really enjoyed watching a bunch of youngish guys step up to, and consolidate their places in, our international sides. Jesse Ryder, Martin Guptill and Grant Elliot, are here to stay. Tim McIintosh, Nathan McCullum, Neil Broom and Peter McGlashan we’ll see more of. And those old fellas like Brendan McCullum, Daniel Vettori and Ross Taylor are showing the consistency expected of them.

And what about Chris Martin? Remember when he was the fresh faced chain smoker who looked like he came straight to the ground from a Psy-Trance night? He is now the elder statesman of the team at 34!

Summer is officially over: the Indians have gone home, the clocks have gone back, and rugby will do its best to grab our attention again. Its about time the economy got going isn’t it? About time the ‘Gummint’ did something? Said something? Anything ... like issue a budget?

Meeting for a week to come up with a national cycle track idea did not exactly inspire me. Allowing the local government issues of Auckland to dominate everything is just making me suspicious. Line by line reviews of every government budget are making the natives of the Wellington public sector very twitchy; this village had the same Chief for 9 years, and now there’s a new boss in town.

Are we in a recession or a coma?