Will Johnston: Fun, despite score? Now that's cricket!

"Could you even call cricket a sport? Those guys out in the field just stand there and don't do anything!" I overheard this from lady in the crowd on Tuesday last week at the Black Caps vs South Africa cricket at Bay Oval. This proves my point; going to the cricket is only partly about the cricket!

Seriously though, we should be really proud of Bay of Plenty Cricket, The Bay Oval Trust and many others. They have done for cricket in the Bay what a decent stadium would do for rugby here. Get a major international game... When it comes to the rugby I'd settle for more than one Chiefs game a season, at this stage!

I was lucky enough to MC the corporate hospitality area and do my radio show at the same time at both games last week. To get close to 3000 people in there for a game on a Tuesday is a minor miracle! When was the last time 3000 people turned up to anything in the Bay on a Tuesday?!

The atmosphere there was fantastic for the Friday game (until we started to suck a bit on the field)! There was everything that we as a nation love about cricket; sunshine, plenty of beer/wine, lots of boundaries, lots of people dressed up and some exceptional sledging from the side line! All of the latter I can't repeat here, but that's the point, you need to go to the game to experience it all!

It also helps that in corporate hospo somehow, with free alcohol all day in there, no one got out of control! The worst that we got was a drunk white dude, with a mullet, doing the worst impression of a haka I've ever seen. So bad it was funny and added to the entertainment!

At this stage I'd like to draw attention to the rain that they got for their third game in Hamilton on Labour Day Monday. Had they had that third game at the Mount it wouldn't have been affected. Yet another reason it's better to live here than Hamilton.

I'm clearly a massive cricket fan, I used to play at a decent level. I believe there is a direct correlation between how well a region performs and grows in a specific sporting code compared to how much top-level of that code is played there. I wonder how many kids were at those games here that had never been to one before? I wonder how many of those kids will choose to stay playing cricket and eventually represent at the top level?

The two days were summed up by a corporate high-flyer at the end of the second game: "Great day, pity about the cricket!" Success, even in failure, that's how you know you're on to a good thing.

Will Johnston is host of The Hits 95FM Day Show. Live and local from 9am till 3pm, every weekday in the Bay of Plenty