:: Cyrus Broacha

NZ primer for cricket lovers

By Cyrus Broacha

As India embark on an epic tour of New Zealand, I realise that the Indian cricket lover and traveller (who very often is the same underage person) doesn’t know enough about this great New Land.

Let’s start with its name. New Zealand. Now, although it’s been around for centuries and in that sense is more appropriately Old New Zealand rather than just New Zealand, the country continues to be referred to by one and all as New Zealand. There is, of course, one exception, Australia. Australia, of course, is made up of people known as Australians, though occasionally the odd Mexican, Pakistani and Hungarian national may be found loitering around asking for directions.

Australians refer to New Zealand as "that country over there". This is usually accompanied simultaneously by a unique gesture where they hold their nose with two fingers whilst pointing in a generally southern direction with three fingers of the other hand. The fingers utilised in this dramatic gesture are normally chosen after a selection process where taller fingers are generally given precedence over smaller ones.

New Zealand’s original "Maori" name is the "the Land of the great White Cloud", which in Maori dialect is "ogh". It’s original name in Sanskrit "H.R. Deva Gowda", is no longer in vouge, for obvious reasons. New Zealand has an extremely unique shape. Initially settlers mistook it for two great kidneys. However, after the alcohol had worn off, better sense prevailed and they figured it was one giant kidney and a large inflated jelly bean. This kidney shape meant that soon hordes of renal patients were encouraged to settle there.

Most of these patients were named either McDemott or McKenzie. Though there was, I’m told, at least one Frankie, two Susans, three Bretts and one Indian who shortened his name to Pashupati Mahadik Valluwariya just to fit in. Very quickly, or over 250 years, whichever came first, there was over 40 million settlers nestled in New Zealand. However, voting rights were not given to everyone, as 37 million of the population were sheep, and sheep as we all know tend to vote for the same candidate due to what scientist call a genetic disposition towards a "herd mentality". Maori scientists refer to this as "ogh".

Soon there were many towns poping up left, right and centre. Actually mostly centre, as left and right was occupied by the aforementioned sheep. The more populated towns were Wellington, Auckland, Napier, Hamilton and Pratapgarh.

In New Zealand, highly populated town is defined as any town with a population of more than 17 people who may or may not speak to each other. In Maori dialect the towns were called Ogh, Ogh, Ogh, Ogh and Pratapgarh.

The most popular sport in new Zealand is the sport of "finding". This is played on a daily basis. The idea here is to locate another person, any other person in a radius of 100 square miles. It’s a difficult sport and attempts are mainly unsuccessful. Next favourite is rugby, followed by sheep rearing, gardening and milking. Cricket, sadly, is the least favourite sport, ranked higher than just two other disciplines: meeting Australians and leaving New Zealand.

I hope this provides the Indian cricket lover with enough information on this great country. ...er one more thing, when you do reach New Zealand, remember to keep up the tradition and do what all Indians do, never return.