Border: ANENDRA SINGH I've spent the best part of two days this week watching my 10-year-old daughter playing in the Riverbend Cricket Camp's tournament. For most of Monday and Tuesday of the three-day girls' under-14 competition it was enjoyable seeing the youngsters go through the motions, despite the disparity in skill levelswhen comparing the four teams. But Tuesday turned out to be an interesting day at Marewa Park, Napier, as a few parents from the visiting North City team from Wellington parked their chairs behind me on the sidelines. "Oh hit that ball Sanna!" a man yelled. Sanna did, to rousing applause, like a softball player, clearing the boundary and giving the adults an opportunity to carry on their armchair assault. Suggestions on length and line of balls and stance on batting, often yelled across the paddock, were absurd and, regrettably, the reason the team was out for a paltry total in the Twenty20 match. All that I weathered between bites of a sandwich, but I couldn't stomach any more of the remarks as it started to spit with rain on an otherwise fine but overcast day. "What's with weather here? Isn't it supposed to be sunny Hawke's Bay?" one of them asked. If they were baiting me, I couldn't resist the temptation: "Well, have you seen the weather around the rest of the country? "The Black Caps match in Hamilton is off, the CD Stags aren't playing in New Plymouth and the (Heineken Open) tennis has been washed out in Auckland. "I suppose that would make the Bay pretty sunny, wouldn't it?" The bunch agreed, contritely. The girls' play-offs yesterday was cancelled due to rain but, not surprisingly, the Bay weather improved from about 10am. Unfortunately, by that time the visiting teams had left for home, although the under-10 boys were in full splendour later that morning. Myopic New Zealand Cricket officials have again failed to allocate more international matches at McLean Park this year. While the seating capacity is not as huge as other major centres around the country, television footage during the Sri Lankan tour revealed that spectator turnouts in metropolitan areas were abysmal. Apart from in Queenstown, it seems as if the weather was not playing ball. On January 20, the CD Stags will play the Otago Volts in a televised Twenty20 match at McLean Park at 5pm. No doubt Hawke's Bay be hot and sunny again for the hit-and-giggle entertainment as the rest of the country watches with envy.
