Day 11 - A Cracking Game of Cricket

I made the decision last night to get a ticket to the T20 international between New Zealand (the Blackcaps) and the West Indies for today. As such, I had a quiet morning this morning, as I knew it would be a late night.

I therefore spent this morning finishing my book and drinking tea at a local coffee shop, as well as catching up on the episode of The Traitors Uncloaked from last Thursday that I hadn’t watched yet.

This afternoon, I went for a bit of an explore with geocaches as my guide. It worked a treat as I saw sights including St Matthew’s church, and Aotea Square, including Waharoa, a Māori entry gate for the city.

With a decent haul of caches, I popped back to my apartment and headed out to the cricket. It was really easy to get to Eden Park on the bus, and nice that public transport is included with the (cheap!) match ticket.

I arrived at Eden Park (which has a capacity of about 50,000 for cricket) about 45 minutes before the match and was taken aback by how empty it was. Whilst some more people did come closer to the start, a sell-out it was not!

Which was a shame, as it was a cracking game of cricket. After a bit of a slow start, Mark Chapman clubbed 78 off 28 balls, helping New Zealand to an impressive 207-5 from their 20 overs.

It did not look like the West Indies were going to get close. In the final 5 overs or so, it all got a bit crazy though. The Windies got it down to needing just 20 off the final 10 balls. They then needed just 6 from the final 4 balls and it really did look like they were going to do it. Somehow though - thanks to some great fielding - the Blackcaps just squeaked over the line to win by three runs. It was a bit of a nerve jangler!

The trip back to my apartment was as straight forward as before (I typed most of this on the bus) - I am now definitely ready for my bed!

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