Cricket: Black Caps back at Napier’s McLean Park to face Pakistan next March

The fever of one-day international cricket at McLean Park in Napier, which is set for another round when the Black Caps host Pakistan next March. Photo / Paul Taylor

The Black Caps will play their most regular McLean Park victims when men’s one-day international cricket returns to Napier next summer.

After the White Ferns play Sri Lanka at McLean Park on March 4, the Black Caps will play Pakistan on Saturday, March 29, going for a sixth win in seven matches between the two countries on the park.

They are the only two internationals on the ground in six inbound men’s and women’s tours during the summer.

The March 29 match, the first in a three-match New Zealand-Pakistan ODI series, after a five-match Twenty20 series, will be the 43rd Black Caps ODI at McLean Park.

The first was against Sri Lanka in March 1983, starting a sequence of eight NZ wins on the Park (including two over Pakistan) before Zimbabwe became the first visiting side to win an ODI there on February 3, 1996 – the first day-night, floodlit international cricket match in New Zealand.

New Zealand’s biggest winning streak on McLean Park since those heady days was three in 2002-2004, and of the 42 so far played, the Black Caps have won 22, tied two (both against England), and lost 17. One game was declared no result.

They have lost four of the past six, including the most recent, by nine wickets to Bangladesh last December, when New Zealand were dismissed for 98.

The park has since been re-sown and had its major cricket block removed, in the first of its five-yearly maintenance projects since undergoing a major oval rebuild, including new drainage systems, a hybrid all-weather turf and installation of a drop-in cricket pitch in 2018-2019.

Out of action now for three and a half months, it will be back in use for the first time in almost four months when the Hawke’s Bay Magpies defend rugby’s Ranfurly Shield against Whanganui on July 27.

The March 4 women’s match is currently expected to be the first event at McLean Park after the February 9 Freestyle Kings stunt motocross spectacular.