A day at the cricket

After much discussion I dug my toes in about going to a World Cup game unless NZ was playing. So last weekend we left after Saturdaylunch for Napier. We stayed at The Nautilus on the waterfront as our friends Fred and Leigh were away in Twizel watching their granddaughter race. We settled on a Thai place for dinner which was just a walk away from the motel. Next morning Duncan went for a run - which proved his undoing as he suffered a really sore knee while I made the filled rolls and packed up the cushions and water. Finally we took our place in the stand and took a selfie.

 You can see we are in our jerseys here and although the wind blew all day, later in the day is got so very hot. It was great to be at a ground again, and just to see the running and the distances involved. The wickets that glow when hit were much better in real life too!

 Here we are - there must have been a wicket! The Afghani's batted first and it was great to see our bowlers in action in the flesh. Many people had the orange Catch a million teeshirts on, but Duncan finds Tui beer so foul he couldn't bring himself to buy one. The man next to us had one on, but I really don't think he was too serious as he took off his leg (artificial)  and used it to store his beer in. He was rubbish at the Mexican wave as well.

 This man in front had the most amazing hair - I wanted to run my fingers through it! It was like a very soft bristle brush.

 The Blackcaps set a very aggressive field - here we have 3 slips and two gullys. We tucked into our rolls and enjoyed a cider while all about us ate hotdogs and pale chips.

But once McCullum was out and the sun really started to beat down on us it was not so pleasant. I queued for an icecream - $5.50 for a magnum. However we stayed right to the bitter end, and saw the win before walking back to our motel. We went Indonesian that night, with Ristoffle - sort of like Indonesian tapas with about a dozen little dishes. We drove home early on Monday morning, so a nice little break away.