Cricket World Cup: Napier named NZ's top cricket-watching crowd

New Zealand captain Brendon McCullum. Photo / Brett Phibbs

Auckland and Wellington crowds provided the most rapturous scenes, but Napier has been crowned New Zealand's top cricket-watching crowd during the world cup.

A bumper 41,279 people crammed in to Eden Park yesterday for the Black Cap's dramatic semifinal win over South Africa.

But with Auckland's 1.4 million population, the crowd represented just under 3 per cent of the people living within 50km of the stadium, according to Statistics New Zealand.

Wellington's quarter-final capacity crowd of 30,268 -- who witnessed Martin Guptill's breathtaking and record-breaking innings of 237 not out -- represented 7.17 per cent of the local population.

But both the capital and the country's biggest city were outstripped by Napier's New Zealand-Afghanistan match earlier this month.

The crowd numbered 10,022, which represented 7.59 per cent of the local population of 132,129 living near to McLean Park.

At the other end of the spectrum, Napier curiously also had the lowest attendance proportionally during this Cricket World Cup, which has been co-hosted by New Zealand and Australia.

At the West Indies v United Arab Emirates match, just 1221 people (0.92 per cent) showed up.