Editorial: Catch game and maybe the ball, too

Marc Ellis and Mathew Sinclair at Art Deco Legends of Cricket match at the Clifton County cricket club.

Hawke's Bay folk shouldn't be too fazed that the Mission Concert took an early leap year.

While this time of year typically marks a seasonal wind-down, the Cricket World Cup has put paid to any suggestion the summer party's over.

This writer was lucky enough to get to Saturday's stunning match at Eden Park; suffice to say the three games in Napier, starting today, have much to live up to.

It's an unfair comparison of course, given last Saturday's anticipated fixture, but there's no reason McLean Park, as a microcosm of its metro cousin in the City of Sails, can't engender the same unrestrained merrymaking.

To this day, the loudest roar I've heard at a live sporting match was the clamour at McLean Park during the Magpies' triumph over the British and Irish Lions in 1993.

There's much to look forward to.

At last week's Legends of Cricket Art Deco Match at Clifton I had the fortune to run into a British sports journalist, who seemed well swooned by the World Cup games here so far. In particular he raved about the marketing masterstroke of Tui's Catch a Million promotion.

Who can argue?

If there was any doubt about the pull of this promotion, witness the armies of orange T-shirt wearers at Eden Park. The crowd awash with orange, it underscored the allure of the novel spectator dimension.

All the best to the hopeful catchers for the three Napier games. Here's hoping McLean Park boasts not only a win for our adopted United Arab Emirates team today and the Black Caps on Sunday - but that someone in orange garb claims the one-handed, elusive take.