Living large in Rarotonga: Cricket in the Islands

There is quite a big cricket following here in the Cook Islands, and it appears to be getting bigger through a number of new initiatives and partnerships - most noticibly with New Zealand's Northern Knights cricket team. They've just recently finished a pre-season team building trip here where they did some coaching at schools and finished off with a match against the Cook Island national team. Needless to say it was a one-sided affair, but a great boost for cricket here.

But as usual in the Cook Islands cricket competes with a number of other sports all running at the same time, often calling on the same players and trying to use the same grounds. We have already had two cases of a ground being double booked between cricket and football. On one occasion we had to move and on the other the footballers had to move.

Yesterday we played Arorangi at Raemaru Park, Arorangi, which is just over the fence from our place. Which turned out to be very fortunate for me as I had a rather nasty upset stomach and had to make several dashed trips home to use the facilities! Not sure if it was a dodgy curry yesterday or something else but I was rather indisposed for our fielding effort until the diastops kicked in! A rather regular occurence was my saying to the captain "Just popping off between overs" I soon used up the toilet paper at the clubhouse so made a mercy dash across the fence to home to pick up some wet wipes - ahhhh!

On one such dash home Janine said "Hell, you don't look so good!" I sat on the throne and literally became drenched in sweat, hot and cold at the same time.

So in spite of that, and the heat, I was very pleased to bowl 5.3 overs and took 3 for 20. Actually, I would have to say it was the best I bowled all season, swinging the ball both in and out at will. The two-piece ball and the humidity certainly help that. Perhaps it helped my concentration levels and kept me focusd.. I remember in my younger days when I enjoyed a drink or two that I always seemed to bat better when hungover. Maybe it was that tunnel vision it provided.

Chasing 168 to win we made a slow but secure start but then our batting took on a familiar pattern to much of the season and we fell away to lose by quite a bit. The diastops had thankfully kicked in but I was drained and I think my score matched the 'runs' I had o make to the loo - 6.

The Cook Island players have a knack of coming in off a couple of paces and slinging it down at a deceptively quick pace, and more often then not they are accurate. If they could learn to swing the ball they would be even more dangerous.

All in all an interesting day.

Here are a few pictures of the day.