Sure, the domestic Super Smash competition featuring the odd international act entertained a limited audience. Attendance for the elimination finals in Dunedin on Thursday underlines the folly of midweek fixtures.
Nothing, of course, compares to the lure of the national team.
The December-January months should always place cricket at the forefront of New Zealand’s sporting consciousness.
This summer that rare window has instead been squandered with the White Ferns last playing at home on December 17, too.
Cricket is to the Kiwi summer what crackle is to pork. Only this season, international cricket has disappeared from view faster than melting ice cream in a child’s hand.
Cricket commentary, in Radio Sport’s heyday at least, formed the constant, soothing background hum amid the barbeque sizzle. At baches or extended family gatherings test matches dominated television screens for days on end. Even when not intently watching every ball regular score updates flowed.
Through those memorable holidays cricket was a constant presence – until this void.
A summer missing the Black Caps is like Christmas without lights. Surf without salt. Pohutukawa trees and no bloom.
And before you say ‘what summer’ don’t forget large sections of the South Island are on track for a drought. Auckland cricket venues hardly demand premier fixtures.
The prime time holiday season without the Black Caps is a missed opportunity to inspire the next generation, particularly for a sport that has suffered for viewership visibility on the soon-to-be defunct Spark Sport platform.
For aspiring cricketers nothing compares to sitting on the embankment at the Basin Reserve, Seddon Park, the Bay Oval, Hagley Park watching heroes in the flesh, attempting to emulate their feats in makeshift games between balls, while seeking treasured signatures on miniature bats as they field on the boundary.
Spending the summer months offshore - playing through the night in Pakistan and India while the vast majority of home fans sleep – significantly downgrades those opportunities. It leaves the lingering question about where priorities truly lie?
If that schedule shifts anywhere towards the norm the Black Caps risk becoming a case of out of sight, out of mind.
As with any professional sport multiple, conflicting moving parts exist.
International cricket increasingly teeters on a fractured, fragile tipping point thanks to the proliferation of global Twenty20 leagues that severely compromise national squads and congested playing windows.
Trent Boult’s absence – after returning from the newly-formed T20 competition in the United Arab Emirates – for the looming England tests offers the most glaring local example of a wasted strike weapon.
The big three cricketing nations – India, Australia, England – hold an iron-clad financial grip that dictates to those market forces control scheduling obligations.
Rather than take centre stage at home throughout Christmas and New Year the Black Caps were instead in Pakistan, in part to play make-up games following their abandoned 2021 tour for security reasons.
After the furore from Pakistan fans at the time of that withdrawal, the sight of empty stadiums for the Black Caps return during New Zealand cricket’s peak home season was galling.
This year’s one-day men’s World Cup was another major factor in the Black Caps exposing depth to Indian conditions to complete six weeks on the subcontinent.
For all those competing ideals, it’s impossible to shake the frustration that New Zealand cricket fans have been short-changed this summer.
As Brendon McCullum and Ben Stokes prepare to briefly transfix New Zealand cricket fans by unleashing England’s ‘Baz ball’ for the belated highlight of the summer, there’s a sense of resentment that two drawcard tests are all too fleeting.
By the time Sri Lanka arrive in March for two tests, three ODIs and three T20s to bookend an underwhelming home schedule the Black Caps will be competing with wall-to-wall sport – notably the ever-encroaching return of the rugby union and league seasons.
Next summer will be marginally better, with the Black Caps hosting Bangladesh for five short-format fixtures over the Christmas-New Year period. South Africa then arrive for two tests in February, before Australia contest two tests and three T20s.
If that’s a pointer to further future schedules, capitalising on the holiday season no longer appears New Zealand Cricket’s priority.
