Cricket: Crowd heartens Snedden over Boxing Day matches

New Zealand Cricket chief executive Martin Snedden is keen to repeat the Boxing Day one-day international at Eden Park next summer - no matter who New Zealand play.

Encouraged by a crowd of 20,000 at yesterday's season-opener against Sri Lanka, Snedden said he would certainly look at a repeat next summer.

"The crowd has shown us people want to get out on Boxing Day to support cricket," said Snedden. "We are happy with the crowd. Tickets sold steadily early on but fell away when the weather looked a bit dodgy.

"For matches like this we usually have about 75 per cent of tickets pre-sold but for this one it was probably 50-50 with the walk-up crowd."

New Zealand Cricket broke from what had become the traditional Boxing Day test at Wellington's Basin Reserve in favour of the ODI, despite some concern at the clash with the New Zealand Derby at Ellerslie. "We never worried about Ellerslie," said Snedden. "We attract a different customer and Auckland is big enough to host two big sporting events on the same day. Overall, we have to give the day a thumb's up."

Snedden said next December's Chappell-Hadlee Series would be followed by incoming tours by Zimbabwe (in the holiday period) and later South Africa.

He had no real concern that Zimbabwe might not be a big crowd-puller for the Boxing Day match.

"We will have a think about it, but for my mind one of the real attractions are the Black Caps," said Snedden.

New Zealand team manager Lindsay Crocker has yet to rejoin the party after returning home from the mid-year tour of England when he became ill.

"He hasn't recovered as quickly as we thought," said Snedden.