I watched the enthralling cricket Test at Wellington between New Zealand and England from my home in Sydney. At one point in the play I called over to my wife to come to look at the screen. ‘Look at the Basin Reserve. What a beautiful cricket ground it is now. And what a great crowd watching the play.’
Many years ago I had watched another Test at the ground, again from my Sydney home, and was appalled to hear Ian Chappell describe the Basin Reserve as one of the world’s worst venues for cricket. Admittedly, it was a typically Wellington vile, windy day and Sir Richard Hadlee was ripping through the Australian batting order as if it were a roll of disposable tissue.
After the Test against England which ended in that oxymoron, an exciting draw, I sent an email to my old mates Don Neely and Doug Catley, both of them totally dedicated to the task of making the Basin Reserve one of cricket’s great venues, congratulating them on what they had achieved. With the typical generosity of fine cricket people, Doug in his email reply suggested that ‘you shouldn’t forget the work done by John Morrison, too, on the Wellington City Council.’
Thumbs up, then, to Don Neely, Doug Catley and John Morrison.
Like many Wellingtonians of a certain age, the Basin Reserve was my home away home, in many ways my real home, when I was growing up and into my 20s. Athletic Park was too far away and only used at the weekends. But the Basin Reserve is virtually right in the city. As well as cricket and soccer in the weekends, in their seasons, there were many other sports events held throughout the week (as well as cricket nets for several grade teams and the Wellington rep teams).
You could wander down to the Basin Reserve and often see interesting events taking place. I saw Marjorie Jackson devastate her opponents, running like a runaway mechanical toy, one night. Another night I saw Barry Brown, a tall, elegant southpaw win an Empire boxing title. One cold afternoon I saw an England rugby league side, the first game of rugby league I’d seen, monster a ramshackle and disorganised Wellington team. Another afternoon I saw Tom Finney and a team of lesser England legends score 10 goals against Wellington. Most years I used to be part of a big crowd to watch the annual Chatham Cup final, football’s equivalent of the Ranfurly Shield. This was in the days when the Watersiders and Marist (the team I followed) were strong clubs.
Most of all, though, were the cricket events I experienced at the ground. An early memory is hot Saturday afternoons at the Basin Reserve watching St Pats playing and with more deference opening up the game for a batsman my team had dismissed. I walked into the crowd once and saw Jack Cowie, in what must have been one of his last Plunket Shield matches, opening the bowling off an extremely long run- up. A favourite player was the Aucklander Verdun Scott, a lean, tallish opening bat, with hardly a back-lift or a typical scoring shot, who was a prolific scorer with nudges and pushes. His contemporary, Bert Sutcliffe, was entirely different. He had shots all around the wicket. And every shot was elegant and forthright.
On another vile and windy day, well before Ian Chappell’s time as a commentator, Sutcliffe scored a laboured (for him) century against an Australian team which featured the equally elegant and slightly baroque leg-spin of Richie Benaud. When the Australian side came out to bat, in the gathering darkness, with about 30 minutes to play, the openers called for a bad light cessation. The umpires rejected the call. Les Flavell then scored four successive fours off Bob Blair’s first four deliveries. The umpires then decided that the light was too bad for play to continue, as the fielders were in some danger.
Playing at the Basin Reserve in club cricket could be an interesting exercise in avoiding decapitation from a batsman playing on one of three nearby wickets. In the far corner a gang of Mercantile League players indulged themselves in a hit-and-giggle exercise with slogging and yahooing being the order of the day. The number two pitch, which ran parallel to the old pavilion, had such a small legside boundary that Brian Prince, a handy medium-pacer but no batsman, hit me for a six off the back of the bat from a mistimed sweep. Players using all three pitches frequently found themselves in danger of their lives as their position of fine leg, say, became a silly mid-on on the adjoining pitch.
The number one pitch was on the side of the ground where the old scoreboard stood. You could see play on this wicket from the trams wheeling around the corner on their way to Seatoun, Island Bay or Kilbirnie. A noted left- handed hitter Paul Standidge hit a delivery out of the ground from this pitch. It landed in a tram and probably rolled out of the tram somewhere near Crawford Green at Strathmore Park. I was batting on this pitch in a club match when Harry Morgan, a left-handed big-hitter like Standidge, came out to face the bowling of the real John Reid, then indulging himself in an off-spinning mode.
Morgan blocked the first ball. The second ball was sent high over Reid’s head, out of the ground and into a balcony of the old Caledonian Hotel that overlooked the Basin Reserve.
Reid had coached me as a youngster. So he knew me. He turned to me and said in his characteristic high-pitched voice: ‘Jeez, Spiro (pronounced as in biro), where did that come from?’
‘He doesn’t usually take that long to play himself in,’ I told him.
It was at the Basin Reserve that I saw a glittering host of great players: Len Hutton fastidious in his run-making; Godfrey Evans standing up to the rolling in-swingers of Alec Bedser; Bob Appleyard unplayable on a then typically green wicket prepared by Harry Wilkins; Roger Prideaux absolutely magnificent against a good New Zealand bowling attack; John Beck scoring a brilliant 40 or so in the virtual dark against a good West Indian attack; Garfield Sobers as a youngster opening in a Test for the first time and hooking the tall, lanky, all arms, elbows and legs Tony McGibbon in the first over for a six and breaking a window in the lunch room underneath the old pavilion; Everton Weekes hitting an old Brabin Shield mate Wilf Haskell for a flat-bat six, with the ball never going higher than about six foot, over the long-on boundary; Andy Valentine in the nets bowling his left- armers and the ball literally humming on its way down to the batsman; Norm O’Neill before an international match hitting the Australian fast- bowlers warming up before taking the field, with every shot being marked by a loud crack like the sound of rifle shot; and I was there on a sunny afternoon when John Reid belted a world record number of sixers against a strong Northern Districts attack ...
My favourite Basin Reserve story was told to me by Frank Mooney, the skilful ’keeper for Wellington and New Zealand and my first club captain. Clyde Walcott was batting against a struggling Wellington attack. He was toying with the bowlers. To keep himself interested he started chatting to Frank.
‘Mr Mooney,’ he would ask, ‘where would you like me to hit the next boundary?’
Frank said that he tried to set impossible targets. When the left-arm spinner Eric Dempster was bowling his darts wide of off stump and spinning away, Frank would nominate, say, fine leg. Sure enough, Walcott would get the ball down to fine leg. Finally Frank called for a hit over long off from a pace bowler who was invariably short and lifting. The great Walcott responded by belting the ball high out of the ground and well down Cambridge Terrace, to be retrieved many minutes later. Flashing his teeth in a huge grin, Walcott turned and asked: ‘Is that what you wanted Mr Mooney?’
The postscript to all of this is that when I was writing up this essay of sorts a huge row erupted over the governance of New Zealand cricket. John Parker was in the news touting his 66-point plan to make New Zealand Cricket more alert to the interests of all the stakeholders and not just for a cabal of senior players, their managers and several blow-in administrators and selectors from Australia.
The majority of former distinguished players with careers in the media and administration supported Parker. But there were a few others, like Martin Snedden, a fine cricketer, a lawyer and a successful organizer of the 2011 Rugby World Cup tournament, who came out against Parker. Who was right in this important argument?
My mind was made up in favour of John Parker when John Morrison came out in support of his statement. Anyone who has invested time and energy in ensuring that the Basin Reserve remains one of the great cricket grounds in the world clearly is in tune with the better angels of New Zealand cricket.