BRAINSTORM: BLACKCAPS bowler celebrations for each Test venue

Sport Review #266

OK, so it is established NZ cricket lore that after a BLACKCAPS Test win at Wellington’s Basin Reserve, the bowlers and wicketkeeper take a limo ride to the top of Mount Victoria. Simple. Iconic. Brilliant.

But - just the one celebration for a whole country is honestly a substandard return. Sport Review has spent a feverish non-billable whiteboard session to create new celebration content, and gifts these ideas to Aotearoa New Zealand cricketers as a free service.

Dunedin - it would be so, so easy to arrange some kind of scarfie Castle Street party with overalls, flaming couches, a Six60 acoustic set and a TV reporter kind of going ‘Ooooh, look at the state of this kitchen’ with some professional cricketers in the mix.

No, for an extra degree of difficulty, the bowlers are loaded into a 1974 Holden Kingswood and must form an indie band with the wicket keeper on drums, and play a 90 minute set of pre-1985 Flying Nun covers in a Port Chalmers pub and genuinely impress the locals.

Christchuch - The group is loaded onto a Hummer limosine and taken to the top of the Port Hills for a special encounter with Sir Richard Hadlee, involving making personal tributes, readings from a selection of his books and a statistical pop quiz, for which they must score at least 85% to earn a lift home.

Napier - The players are loaded on the back of a Ford Ranger T Rex and whisked to a farm shed converted into a over-compensatingly-highly-specced man cave to enjoy badly burnt lambs tails, a court session and banter about boarding schools. Unfortunately all right-armed bowlers are injured by a farmer who insists on a crushing handshake that covers deep insecurities, and the wicketkeeper ends up signing a professional rugby contract with the Crusaders.

Mount Maunganui - The obvious thing would be go to the top of the Mount, but the dirt track means limosine access is severely limited. Luckily, with most of the squad living in the area, it’s an opportunity to host the boys for a classic kiwi BBQ. Everyone is loaded into peak-charge Toyota Prius Ubers to enjoy a last minute dash to the Tweed Street New World for tomato sauce, an empty gas bottle and limiting the bluetooth speaker to 3 at 10pm, while hovering to check everyone’s using a coaster.

Hamilton - The boys are loaded onto a specially commissioned Waipa Delta paddleboat and taken for a boozy river cruise, with the good folk of Hamilton showering the vessel with Burger Rings and other trinkets from the bridges of the Waikato River. Disembarking at St Andrews golf course, a limosine will circle Flagstaff, Pukete and Dinsdale looking for that one party, before joining a group of High School students for a gathering on a suburban driveway to enjoy Woodstocks and Def Leppard’s Hysteria on repeat.

Auckland - unfortunately the last Test in a city with a third of our population was in 2018, with seemingly little prospect of it happening again anytime soon. In that case, Auckland’s celebration is sitting in a hotel lobby and silently looking at phones.

Thanks for reading - Richard

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