The Pink Report

Rain & Other Four Letter Words

Mushrooms. Thousands of toxic, pointy little mushrooms, poking up over the newly-washed grass like fairy umbrellas. My keen mind detected this was not a good sign at a cricket ground. Neither was the endless yellow and blue blob on the Metservice rain radar right where the North Island used to be, nor the gravid grey hua of a raincloud tethered directly over Blake Park.

I love the Metservice rain radar. I believe it was invented for the sole purpose of taunting cricket types huddled under big white tents at soaked cricket grounds waiting for the game to be formally abandoned. Just one glance at the laptop screen and you can instantly see all the other places in New Zealand where you could have successfully played the match that day.

Christchurch, for instance. While we were squashing pointy mushrooms with our Wellies in Mount Maunganui, the Canterbury Wizards and Central Stags were getting in a 10-over game on a greasy green strip at QEII Park, which the Mother of all Rain Fronts was graciously skirting around.

Greasy green strips always produce a result, although anything can happen and it promptly did. The Stags were getting thoroughly rutted at 11/5, then somehow got to 73/8. The Wizards trotted out to 34/0, then somehow lost six wickets for 14 runs. Perhaps they were keen on keeping things interesting. Cue lots of lines about the unpredictable nature of Twenty20 cricket. Mad as the weather.

Let us now rain curses on La Niña, she who specialises in ditching her big fat rain over parts northern (if previous La Niña years are to be remembered), because the kooky three-run victory down south has kept the HRV Cup points table interesting, too. It was much better when it was boring: Knights at the top, Knights still at the top, Knights back on top, etc.

A win is worth four points, washouts worth two, so with two washouts in a row up in Auckland, the Aces have nudged out to 20 points. The Yahoo!Xtra Northern Knights are in second spot, now, with 18. And that’s annoying, because momentum is a cricket team’s friend and after caning the Wizards in Hamilton on Friday, a barrage of big runs coming from Daniel Flynn, David Warner and Herschelle Gibbs, you would have backed the team to have made short work of cellar-dwellars the Otago Volts at Blake Park, particularly with Brendon McCullum unavailable for the luckless southerners.

But instead of momentum we have mushrooms, and it’s going to be good weather for fungi for at least a few days yet, according to our forecaster friends.

Meanwhile, those dangerous Stags have hauled themselves up from the dungeon to 12 points with their crazy win, equal now with the Wizards and back within striking distance of the frontrunners. With just a handful of rounds left now to sort out the finalists in this short competition - including a head-on clash with the Stags at Pukekura Park, all I have to say is stay away La Niña, you’re not invited.