It just is cricket

To bolster my Englishman abroad credentials I went along to a cricket match on Sunday at the Wellington Basin. It's a lovely ground with grass banks around most of the boundary where you can sit with a picnic and enjoy the game.

The match was a twenty20 invitational game to raise funds for the Christchurch earthquake appeal. Most of the players were retired cricket legends, but there were also a couple of former All Blacks thrown in as well. Russell Crowe and Jamie Nesbitt were each coaching a side, there was a hobit umpire (Martin Freeman) and there were more celebs wandering amongst the crowd collecting donations. 


It wasn't a serious match, but it was entertaining and they were boundaries a plenty, with a company donating NZ$1,000 for every six hit.


Fujitsu put up a donation of NZ$100,000 (around £50,000), which led to this  -

That's Shane Warne bowling to the PM, John Key, who had to hit a boundary for the $100k to go to charity. The square leg umpire in the deck chair is Sir Ian Mckellen, who had to dive out of the way for one of the shots. Key managed to hit the boundary - Warne was plenty gentle, at least until the PM started sledging him about Liz Hurley.


All in the day raised over NZ$500,000 and we had a spiffing good time with it!