Thursday, 30 March 2006
The 11th commandment
The 57th birthday of Uton Dowe seems as good a day as any to commemorate one of the greatest pieces of crowd witticism ever. Uton was a West Indian seam bowler who was mauled by Keith Stackpole to such an extent in the Jamaican Test of 1971-72 that the crowd erected a series of banners proclaiming an 11th commandment, "Dowe shalt not bowl."
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4 comments:
hey mike,
apropos your previous post, it was sad to see newzealand getting such a bum deal in terms of the cricket calendar...i think the indian board's running real scared these days. sickening.
and baout "dwindling" fanbase, i wanted to know why isn't the board trying the Twenty20 phenomenon, considering that Maxcricket started off so nicely?
Twenty20 has been tried here and has been a real success - surprisingly it has also taken off at domestic level. And places like Wellington still attract good crowds to test matches, but Eden Park in Auckland was just a big empty bowl during the first test. We have had a couple of empty years with the tsunami ruling out Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe being banned by the government and India cancelling. Without international games I think New Zealand cricket is really going to struggle to maintain its place in our sporting pantheon.
The Eden Park issue is funny - NZ Cricket got rid of the Boxing Day test at Wellington to have one-dayers at Eden Park. But no-one goes to cricket in Auckland, except for the novelty of 20/20. Why NZ Cricket continues to prioritise matches in Auckland is beyond me. They should focus it in the parts of the country that support it - Wellington, Napier, Queenstown, etc.
It has been my long held belief that test cricket in New Zealand should be played in Wellington and the provinces. It is embarressing looking at an empty Eden Park and Jade Stadium. I am convinced that they would attract better crowds at venues like New Plymouth and Whangarei. They play first-class cricket in those centres, so they have the grounds and the facilities.
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