Before I left for New Zealand a few grad students working for the ITS Help Desk (where I am the supervisor) kept telling me that I needed to go and see the India v. New Zealand matches because India (their home country and their favourite team) was touring New Zealand in March. I said I would think about it.

So we are in New Zealand and one of the main sports played is Cricket. We had to go see a match right? Jack’s teacher reminded his class that there was the match here in Christchurch on the weekend and it would be fun. I was also primed from the talking to from my student employees – so we were off to the match.

But we had no idea how cricket was played, so after a quick google, we had the answer – the long answer: http://www.cs.purdue.edu/homes/hosking/cricket/explanation.htm We figured we could also ask someone around us in the stands if we needed to figure anything out…

The day was a nice warm sunny day after a few days of rain, thank goodness. Jack, Will, Sarah’s uncle John, and I headed out for the afternoon match.

After watching the first 25 overs (you will have to read the rules, I am not going to explain it…) we started wondering just how long would this match be anyway. It had already been 2 hours and Jack’s teacher said it should be only 4 hours… So we asked a nice Kiwi behind us and he informed us that the 50-50 match, or “One Day International” could go until 9 or 10 PM! Whoops. Apparently Jack’s teacher thought it would be the much shorter 20-20 match.

We stayed until New Zealand was up batting, around 7 pm, they had a really large target to hit, as India was hitting extremely well. For all those cricket fans – the “6” signs were held up a lot. 🙂

All, in all we and fun. The boys got some helmets, we had lots of fries and I had a few beer. A good day.

Here are some pics of the match.

Later,
Jonathan

Jack, John and Will

The pitch with view of the “party stands”

C’est moi.

Future cricket players?

After the first 50 Blackcaps are up to bat.

See that target. A big number for the Blackcaps to hit. They came close, though and only lost by 50 runs. Rock on.

Hi All,
Some updated pics from NZ.  The boys are in surfing lessons every Sunday for 5 weeks and so far it’s been a great success.  All are well and we’re having a great time.  

Love to you all.
Sarah

This is Sumner, the village where we are living.  It’s about a 20 min drive to downtown Christchurch and is a great spot to live.
Our house is a block in from the water to the right of the picture.  The hills in the distance are the Kaikoura Ranges.

The Lyttleton farmers market.  The boys got dairy and nut free banana chocolate dip ice cream cones.   

They were delicious… obviously.  The “ice cream” was actually frozen banana.  Brilliant. 

The boys first surf lesson.  Getting the basics before putting them to the test in the water.

Practicing some of those basic moves!

The board was a little big for Will but it worked out well for him.

Jackson was standing his first try out.  We were cheering like crazy from the beach.  In total we took about 500 pictures during their two hour lesson.

Will getting some one on one direction.

Will and Jackson.

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A great shot of Jackson.  He’s a natural.

Will was able to master standing by the end of the first lesson.

Will would fall in a flurry of legs and arms, get up smiling and head back out into the surf.

Surfer Will.

Surfer Jackson.

Look at the focus and determination.  It was fabulous.