Sit Down, It's A Broad Day

England 325 for 9 declared

v New Zealand 306 all out

England 374 all out

New Zealand 63 for 5

Close on Day 3

Saturday 18 February 2023

Played at Bay Oval, Mount Maunganui

New Zealand Beer Ticks 203

Quite the evening that. A simple one to just sit back and enjoy. They finally had to haul Broad off to let Leach bowl the final over from the railway track end. Broad had bowled ten on the bounce. Sixty three was actually a recovery for NZ - from 28 for 5.

I was actually left disappointed at the end. Five wicket spells are a thing to behold and it looked like he might do it. All four he bagged were bowled, I ain't got any facts, but they all seemed to hit the top of the stumps. He was 4 for 15 as he bowled Blundell.

I'm reading the last Englishman to get the top three all bowled was Trueman. But Trueman wasn't rebel rousing the crowd, mugging for the cameras and cheekily asking for LBWs when the ball had been flat batted back to him.

The day had begun with a car full of Kiwis roaring past us as we waited to cross the junction.

"Come on the Blackcaps"

They shouted as they sped in the opposite direction to the actual game. But, some NZers did make it to a full and busy Oval.

Which meant that on day three, at the tea interval in old natural light red ball cricket - the lager ran out. The back up was cans. As it got "boisterous", the Intox Stewards imposed a one beating heart one beer policy. So, I had to make a number of runs to keep the perpetually seated Carrier Bag Firm stocked up. I needed a checklist to make sure they didn't clock my multiple runs.

Beer bought with cap on

Beer bought with cap off

Beer bought from lady at far end of bar

Beer bought from gentleman this end of bar

Simple smile, no big jokey gestures that they might remember

During all that, I harvested my 203rd New Zealand Beer Tick;

Boundary Road Brewery, Laid Back Lager from a Tin at 5%

Phil? People often ask me. You know when you go to cricket abroad, like now in New Zealand, and you buy tickets online from TicketShafter or some shite like that. Do you let the algorithm choose your seat, or do you use that fiddly, choose your own seat fiasco?

(giggling here)

For this game, here at the marvelous Bay Oval, overlooked by Mount Maunganui, I needed to choose my own seat. And, here's what came up as the options.

I was sorely tempted by the black & grey one front & centre. It had a sort of zip pocket hanging down which looked absolutely perfect for storing scorecards and other meaningless bits of paper for the sacred archives. Or there was the blue full recliner behind it. But I'm never gonna select that All Blacks badged one.

We moved on to the second set of seat options. It may not be immediately apparent on first viewing, but the key bit of information is on the yellow tag hanging off the green chair at the front.

$7.98 it says - £4.21

"That'll fucking do. And it's got somewhere to put the beers"

I paid $78.80, call it £41.50, for a five day pass for what will surely be a four day test, call it a tenner a day. But, that only allows me to sit on the grass. So, here's the supplement I had to pay to get our two arses off the ground.

Tales From The Taproom

Today, I thought I'd write about at Tap that's actually in the town the Test is being played in.

The Rising Tide

107 Newton Street, Mount Maunganui 3116

Now, this is not our first Rodeo in Mt Maunganui. So, we are very familiar with The Rising Tide. Home to Mount Brewing. A superb place in the industrial and warehouse heartlands. With the freight railway running alongside. But fronting onto Soper Reserve. Which I can best describe as a Village Green not in a village.

This is very much a working brewery. Indeed, some of the seats are bang next their barrel project. One day, we'll be back for that twelve and half Porter.

We had to do some furious cross checking between spreadsheets, Untappd, written menus, chalkboards & actual kegclips to avoid dupliticks. And I went (all Mount Brewing, all Keg);

Hang Five Hazy Pale Ale at 5.3%.

Golden Hour Hazy XPA at 4.7%

Mr Jones, Hazy IPA at 7%

Mountie Pilsner at 5.2%

Relax, It's Only A Lager at 4%

Kiwifruit Sour at 4.7% (I'm not a fan)

And, Mount Of The Day;

Hefe Nice Day (collab with Sunshine Brewery), Wheat Beer at 4.9%

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