daring dude
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The return of one-day international cricket to the Basin Reserve in January is a step closer after Westpac Stadium officials agreed to a collective effort to help bring more international matches to Wellington.
It means the 8000-capacity Wellington Basin is a New Zealand Cricket rubber stamp away from hosting Pakistan in mid-January, its first ODI in 11 years.
Cricket Wellington chief executive Peter Clinton met on Monday with the respective CEOs of NZC, David White, Wellington City Council, Kevin Lavery, and the stadium, Shane Harmon. The stadium holds a contract with NZC to stage all Wellington ODIs but there was an agreement to potentially work around that.
"There is a collective will to put together a proposal to NZC to secure Wellington city as many top level matches as we can get in the next three years," Clinton said.
"The real opportunity is if we go back with a proposal which allows us to utilise both Westpac Stadium and the Basin for those inbound tours and those matches we think most appropriately fit those two venues."
A Pakistan ODI in Wellington would struggle to draw 10,000 to the stadium, which makes the Basin a more appealing prospect. The stadium is also busy during that period hosting the Phoenix and rugby sevens. White last week gave his backing to staging ODIs against second tier nations at smaller venues like the Basin.
"We don't want to play ODIs in stadiums that are a quarter full. It's not good for anyone; the players, the public and the stadiums. It doesn't look great from a broadcast point of view," White said.
"It's such a special ground for New Zealand, and I think against the right opposition ODIs at the Basin would be terrific."
It's also Cricket Wellington's preferred option, and if it got the go-ahead Clinton hoped they'd sell out in shades of past decades when the midweek ODI at a crammed Basin was one of the features of inbound tours.
"I think they'd be hanging off the pohutukawas. It would be a wonderful event for Wellington. There's such a lot of goodwill around the Basin that we could have a very special event. At the same time we want to make sure the stadium gets its share of the big games because they're very important in terms of those big teams."
Those big teams would be Australia this summer, and probably South Africa in 2017. White revealed last week Australia's February itinerary was likely to be cut from three tests to two tests and three ODIs, and Wellington was keen to host one of each.
The 30,000-capacity stadium would likely get one Chappell-Hadlee ODI and the Basin, still seen as the country's premier test venue, would be a good bet to host a trans-Tasman test.
"From a city point of view we'd love an Australian test match in February; we'd love an Australian ODI if that's what is going to happen, given all the scenes we had at Cricket World Cup. There's a real love affair with the Black Caps going on with the Wellington public so we'd want to try and maximise that."
NZC is mulling over 11 international venues to host Sri Lanka (two tests, three ODIs, three T20s), Pakistan (five ODIs, three T20s) and Australia (two tests, three ODIs) in a packed summer from December to February. The schedule is expected to be confirmed by the end of this month.
