Not a great picture is it? Brendan McCullum has just launched one into our bit of the banks at deep mid-wicket at some point on Friday afternoon and I appear to be contemplating the meaning of life. Again.

Much more to contemplate today thanks to the brilliance and fortitude of Nick Compton and Alastair Cook. All three results possible? Probably not.

You never know though. Test Cricket, eh? Lets hope the remaining two Tests in Wellington and Auckland prove as eventful.

….Shepherd’s Warning as the old country saying goes.

Further bad portents for England? Or more rain of the like we saw on Wednesday?

Most of the five thousand or so that swelled the grass banks of the pretty Dunedin University Oval yesterday will be happy with another warm late-summer day. And lots more runs.

England will take the rain.

(Photo taken from my current digs in Warrington, a charming coastal village twenty minutes drive over the hills from the city. Yet again this beautiful country can’t help but inspire me. It’s going to be a hard place to leave.)

Lucky Paul. You’ve all been following the story here on DWC. Lovely ol’ boy from Yorkshire. Fellow traveller. We met on the way to the cricket in Mumbai and somehow ended up watching the rest of the Indian tour together. He went trekking in Nepal, I went gadding about in Australia. “See you in Dunedin!” was the cheery farewell at Nagpur airport just before Christmas.

Now then readers, your starter for ten. Why is Lucky Paul so-called?

Yes that’s right. It’s because before every day of every match since our chance meeting in Mumbai, the day’s play has to start with a handshake. It started off as a convivial formality. It has gone on from being merely a superstition to an unbreakable institution.

Every day. Before play. The handshake. Not Masonic or Street or something similarly vulgar or odious. A standard handshake. The accepted greeting all over the world.

At the University Oval, Dunedin, New Zealand were outstanding today. From first ball to last. Brendon McCullum marshalled his troops well and will take massive pride from today’s showing. The Black Caps quicks got among the England top order early on, Tim Southee praying on Nick Compton’s lack of confidence. Neil Wagner (4-42) on debut was the pick though, ending up with the wickets of Alastair Cook and Kevin Pietersen in consecutive deliveries.
Ian Bell fluffed yet another opportunity to lead from a good position, his profligate dismissal when well set in the twenties was typical of a lot of England’s stroke play. Yorkshireman Joe showed he is human after all, getting out early as England continued to implode. A wake up call for England here; Rooty can fail.
Matt Prior and then top scorer Jonathon Trott (44) gave their wickets away before Stuart Broad’s brainless slog sweep added to left-arm spinner Bruce Martin’s glut of wickets. Steve Finn and James Anderson gave their side’s total something approaching respectability before Anderson miscued to Wagner to leave Martin with 4-43 on debut and England 167 all out.

The Kiwis’ response wasn’t in England’s script either. The returning Finn and Anderson were supposed to blitz the openers as they did in the shorter format two weeks ago. The bowlers looked as ineffective as their batting counterparts. Hamish Rutherford played serenely while Peter Fulton stonewalled near faultlessly. Rutherford, the young debutante would finish the day unbeaten on 77 and New Zealand 36 runs behind.

Late afternoon and the home team, against the expectations of their loyal supporters sat on the banks, were cruising. England, with an hour or so still to go, were firmly in the doldrums. Their vast away following wracking their brains to think of similarly chastening away days.
The shadows started to lengthen, the South Western wind cooling the late summer sun, the scoreboard read seventy five without loss.
Paul frowned, casually turned to me and said;

“Henry. We never did the handshake earlier.”

Aw bugger.

The opening morning of a Test Match and the frisson of excitement that accompanies it. In an hour or so I’ll be heading down to the University Oval in Dunedin to cheer on the lads.

Two things worry me slightly. Firstly, the weather. Looking out across the town from the lofty location of my current hostel, things don’t look good for today. Secondly, Australia.

Well, to be honest, our pre-occupation with them.

The Aussies were hammered yesterday in Hyderabad by an Indian side England worked very hard to beat last year. Properly hammered. By an innings and 135 runs. After declaring their first innings. Yes, its the sort of cataclysmically, comical thing that always used to happen to us.

And, as a result, bars, cafes and the Twittersphere are alive with the sound of English smugness. Ladies and gents, don’t get drawn into all this vulgar triumphalism. These boasts of ten-nil and Test Matches winning early may be tongue-in-cheek but their exultant tone is in bad taste and disrespectful to our foes over the next six Test Matches.

New Zealand are first up. We underestimate them at our peril. Witness yesterday’s 114 run victory by their supporters over ours in the pre-match Twenty20. A lusty singing of Jerusalem was shouted down by an awe inspiring cricket Haka solo by the Beige Brigade captain, Big Red.

We come at yer, come at yer, bat and ball.
We come at yer, come at yer, bat and ball.

Six foot and seventeen stone of Southern Man. A William Wallace like figure with thick ginger whiskers and a flowing red mane clad from head to toe in beige. As far a cry from the cuddly Kiwi image beloved of gift shops it’s hard to imagine. The English reeled. Big Red’s team went at the Barmy Army bat and ball. Hard. Bannockburn recreated on a cricket field in the most Scottish city you’ll see anywhere outside of Scotland.

As a marker for the upcoming series, together with the nearly full England team’s unexpected loss in Queenstown last week, this should say something. As anyone who’s ever tried strolling up Baldwin Street in this fair city, you underestimate New Zealand at your peril.

We have been warned.

Browsing through my Queenstown photos from last week and fighting off the slight pangs of Wish You Were There that periodically entrap my heart while I type this in Not So Sunny Dunny, I came across the following picture. I do like a good tree, as you well know.

It really is a handsome specimen, isn’t it? Because I’m unsure of the species, and I’m too lazy to look it up, the tree has been named Yorkshire’s finest following a photo shoot he did alongside it on the shores of Lake Wakitipu last week.

I’m sure along with everything he wants to achieve in cricket, Joe Root will be chuffed to bits to have a tree named after him. It’s not quite Wisden Cricketer of the Year, but it’s a start.

From small acorns….

“So the thing is, err Bumble, you see, um, would you be kind enough, I mean would you mind awfully, having a photo with me. Please. My dad’s a big fan, my sister-in-law thinks you’re brill…”

“Shoooot ooopp.”

“Right oh. Sorry, very sorry.”

Gareth, good on ‘im, takes the photo.

David ‘Bumble’ Lloyd. The man who’s done everything in the game, county and international cricketer, first class umpire, county and international coach, author. All with varying degrees of success yet it is in his current role as commentator where he is best known. Cult hero, legend, national treasure.
Take your pick of the apt accolades. Bumble’s distinctive Lancastrian accent has enhanced many a cricket match down the years, his infectious enthusiasm for the sport he has served so well spilling out into his commentaries along with his brilliant and bewildering bons mots.

I hold the gentleman in the highest esteem. I was nervous about meeting him. Which is why I couldn’t stop gibbering away like an idiot when I bumped into him on Saturday night.

You know that verbal diarrhoea you instantly develop when you see a jaw-droppingly good looking lass across the room and tumble ill-advisedly into conversation with when your turn to get the round in coincides. Granted I’d had one or two, but, by now, I was rabbiting for England.

You know when the verbal diarrhoea you’re experiencing looks like it could become terminal? Yeah, that happened too.

“So, um, Mr Lloyd, Bumble, err, let me tell you my theory that it is Bedfordshire and not Yorkshire or indeed that fine Red Rose county across the Pennines that is the cradle of English cricket….”

“Shoooot ooopp.”

Thankfully, Gareth or Barney or the band’s new song filled in the hole that was opening up in front of me.

“Brown Sugar by the Rooollin’ Stooones. Ah looov that. Get ’em to do Brown Sugar.”

I volunteered to persuade the band to do it. Alas they didn’t really know it. Or Angie.

“Roooobbish!”

I was having a ‘mare. So espying some charming sort out of the corner of my eye, I sensed my chance to make a break from my self imposed cast-iron cage of embarrassment. I followed her to the dance floor where I promptly proceeded to rip it up in that giraffe-tripping-acid crossed with Stephen Merchant with-his-spine-recently-removed way that sadly for me (and comically for everyone else) befalls someone of my lanky stature when faced with the trials and tribulations of disco dancing. She was loving it. I was loving it.

So, apparently, was Bumble. Stood crouching like Arthur Fagg in his pomp and tapping away like a young Lonnie Donegan, the great man had made his way towards the edge of the dance floor and was hollering and barracking my efforts, that characteristic love of life writ large across those famously dour-or-delighted features.

They say you should never meet your heroes. Roooobbish!

David Lloyd. Thank you. Top man.

“They’ll print anything these days.” After shrugging off another brush with death, his latest adversity sent to the Pearly Gates via a printing press, Pierce Brosnan’s James Bond dusts himself off, leaving this Droghedan drawled, suave one liner hanging in the air.

Editors of New Zealand newspapers live by this rule. For the most part, very little happens here. Witness this offering from the Otago Daily Times, Queenstown Times pullout section.

Left to right; Ollie, Gemma, me, Keith, Greg, Jackie and Charlie. If it looks like I’m grimacing, you try looking enthusiastic holding the People’s Front Of Cornwall flag in one hand and a coarsely defaced ‘Essex Innit’ on a St.George’s flag in the other.

Yes, I did say that last bit. A role in the UN Diplomatic Corps awaits surely?

Or Shameless?

Yes it’s another picture of Queenstown. Yes there’s cricket in it again.

Look closer.

That’s Greg standing at short mid wicket. Charlie diligently keeps wicket. The bowler is new Elstow CC recruit Ollie. The batsman off-driving? Yours truly.

This was how we spent the lunch break. In New Zealand, where they treat cricket supporters like grown ups (Yes BCCI, that barb was meant for you.), you can wander on to the field of play and inspect the wicket, you can let the soft, closely cropped outfield grass brush your toes, or, like us, you can attempt to emulate your heroes by having a go yourself.

The photo captures my first international boundary. The ball kissed the rope so I reckon it must be my first international boundary. I’m happy with myself here so I apologise for the smug title of this post. It’ll be back to doubt and self loathing soon enough though I’m sure, but at that moment I was, like Colin Zeal in the Blur song, so pleased with myself.

Ah ha.

Greg I met in Kolkata at the third Test, he and his girlfriend and Jackie are following the Test Series here too. A lovely couple, it’s been great to catch up with them. The photographer, to whom I’m very grateful is Keith, another acquaintance from the India tour. Splendid fellow. Charlie is the chap from Essex I met up north who’s undertaking his first England tour overseas. Good player, he’d do a job at The Warren. Ollie, I met him and his charming girlfriend Gemma today. Ollie looks like a cross between Jesus and Serge from Kasabian. And plays a bit like them too.

What an enticing prospect for the Barry Fry Stand regulars….

I’ve overdone the photos and sketches a little bit recently on DWC. I think. The problem, and what a problem it is to have, with New Zealand is it does rather demand you keep taking them.
Along the way many of the people I’ve encountered have shrugged incredulously when I’ve told them I’m following the fortunes of my national cricket team to the far reaches of the globe.

Why, or as is more common over here, warum?

And then I show them pictures like these.

Ach so, alles klaar.

I’d been looking forward to the Queenstown match for a while, ok, it’s a warm up game rather than a Test Match, but I’d been told great things about the ground here. Word even reached me it might even be more picturesque than The Warren, the home of the mighty Elstow C.C.

Dear reader, I couldn’t possibly say.

England finished the day 357-7, Ian Bell finished on 127-7. Some of his cover drives rivalled the vista for serenity. As stated previously here and among fellow Doubting Thomases elsewhere, the talent has never been in doubt.
Alastair Cook looked in complete control before edging behind for 60 and Joe Root, England’s wunderkind, in keeping with the Teutonic talk from earlier, perished just shy of his half century. It was great to see Matt Prior back in an England shirt and his quick firing partnership with Bell gave his team some momentum after the New Zealand XI’s bowlers threatened to derail their progress.

Day two should see England ram home their advantage. They have the runs on the board and a bowling attack yearning to feature in the forthcoming Test series, as well as put down an early marker for inclusion in the Ashes side in the summer.

I couldn’t sleep last night. I have no idea why.

I used to get this a lot on Sunday nights. And I will again soon as my adventure begins to draw to a close. Firstly, what the hell do I do with my life once the booziness and badinage of this trip has warn off and all the highs of the last few months have been coldly filed into the memory bank?
Even then, I’ll probably hate what I end up doing anyway and it’ll be back to those bleak thoughts. The thought of another Monday, another week’s fruitless trudge for dismal reward.

Could it be that? Or, following my dalliance with 5 Star luxury the night before, my bad karma catching up with me.
Or my unceremonious return to hosteling. Current gripes? Good looking lasses with blokes out of their league (If that’s the current trend, how come I’m missing out?).
And big groups of do-gooding types (teachers or church groups, that type of thing) hogging the facilities, the rest of us consigned to kitchen corners as they loudly and lengthily prepare their Last Suppers.
And the fact that my current billets are right next to the adjoining creaky wooden stairs and the nocturnal cattle herd (a unique selling point for any hostel, you’d have thought) that use them for sprint training.

As I was trying to count sheep (lots of them down here admittedly, I got two thirds of the way through I reckon) and wrestle with the Black Dog a single, beautiful thought fought its way through the darkness, like the band’s greatest fan* straining through the stubborn drunken phalanx of tottering bodies to get their spot beside the stage. Something I read from Mr Derek’s article in the Telegraph an hour or two earlier;

Saturday was England’s first ODI series win against New Zealand for twenty-one years.

Brilliant. That really is brilliant.

This says three things to me. Firstly, under Alastair Cook, England are establishing a welcome habit of breaking long-standing records. Witness, firstly the Test side’s dramatic series win after a quarter of a century in India in December. And now the latest triumph in New Zealand. For all the Kiwi fans protestations, New Zealand are traditionally tough competitors at this form of the game and to win here is a sign of England’s growing confidence, a sign of a hitherto un-hinted at long term planning, player selection and tactics as firstly the Champions Trophy then, belatedly, the World Cup approaches. Keep on winning lads.
Secondly, it shows a further, worrying decline in New Zealand cricket. Blackcaps supporters, granted are quick to jump on both success and failure bandwagons as soon as they’re hastily assembled, but losing their way, at home, in One Day Internationals should sound alarm bells that have previously been ringing at Test level. It pains me to see this kind of second team (if you’re ever allowed such a thing, especially internationally) to me go through this. Their hardcore support deserve better.
Lastly, this has the makings of a very good limited overs England side. I like the make up of it, I like the longevity of it and I like the hunger of it. Young tyros bursting to show off their talents on the world stage mixed with canny performers who know this format inside out topped with the cream of world cricket talent and a collective urge to prove they are the best in the world. This is the beginning of an exciting chapter for this team.

A happy idea indeed. Forget counting sheep, I allowed my self to slip into subconsciousness with thoughts of stirring victories and a positive future for English cricket.

Sweet dreams.

*Like me at a Wait For Jude gig, for example. Hello Scott, Gav, Greg and axeman Pete.