Midweek Fixture: An ode to the unloved Shield

Here's a great photo featuring Ronnie Hira from the Plunket Shield archives. Photo / Photosport

The Plunket Shield is a national treasure and any attempts to devalue it should be viewed as treason.

We are not two rounds into the competition and have recorded a triple century (Michael Papps); a double century on debut (Brad Schmulian); a yes-I'm-still-here 175 from Jesse Ryder; a Northern Districts card that had all six batsmen used scoring half centuries and none more than 84; a Wellington side that's playing like the 1927 Yankees; and a preposterous run out that was so Neil Wagner that all others that follow in kind will be known as Wagner's.

It's all rollicking good fun and scrolling through the rudimentary clips offered on the video scorecards housed at blackcaps.co.nz is a great way to waste 15 minutes or so on the wireless network at work.

The Plunket Shield is a wonderful curiosity for cricket lovers, yet deeply unpopular with those who have to pay to run it.

It's tempting to call it a throwback, an irrelevance even, but that couldn't be further from the truth. There's elements of the tournament that are anachronisms - there are way too many first-class venues in New Zealand for starters and the boundaries of the six first-class sides are beyond stupid in this day and age - but as a method of developing about 90 cricketers per year for higher honours, name me a better education?

It's certainly not infrequent, expensive and no-consequence 'A' tours. It's certainly not limited overs cricket. First XI cricket is light years from first XV rugby in terms of preparing professional ready players.

The Plunket Shield is it.

The marketing and commercial departments might love Twenty20 cricket. That's cool. There's no doubt the short format has revolutionised the sport as a spectacle and as a remunerative exercise for players and administrators, even if New Zealand attempts at a domestic showpiece has proven about as sexy as a six-legged dog.

But you don't have to worry about that at the Plunket Shield. The only thing it stands for is cricket. There's still a place for that.

This has not come to me in a revelation. In 2006 I asked, and was somehow allowed, to go to the first day of the first-class season. I wrote about it.

I made myself read that story again this week, because I wanted to see if anything had changed.

Apart from the fact that I'd be laughed out of the room these days if I asked for flights to anywhere to watch the opening of the Plunket Shield, precious little has: it's still starts in bitingly cold, long-sleeve weather, it's still as trendy as the theme tune to Country Calendar, and there's still nobody at the ground watching it. And there's still people like me who follow it keenly from a safe distance.

Long may that continue.

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Back to the boundaries for a minute. Let's just say you're starting a national six-team lacrosse competition tomorrow. In what world would you consider Hawkes Bay, Nelson and Taranaki natural partners, as they are for Central Districts in cricket? Or Northland, Poverty Bay and King Country, as they are for Northern Districts?

The time has long arrived for New Zealand Cricket to bite the bullet and overhaul their antiquated major association, minor association system.

THE WEEK IN MEDIA ...
It might not be strictly legal, but there are plenty of opportunities on YouTube to watch the NFL Network's Do Your Job II, which takes a drill down deep look at the New England Patriots inconceivable comeback to win Super Bowl LI. The Patriots coaching staff's attention to detail is legendary and this short film leaves you in no doubt that it's worthwhile.

Heck of a story from Bleacher Report, taking an in-depth look at a joyous homecoming for former Nepali striker Fabio Quagliarella that turned into a living nightmare.