It’’s love, hate with old mate
It hasn’t always be an easy relationship but Australian opener misses Kiwi crowds
Departing opener David Warner has called for a renewal of the transtasman rivalry after a drought of Australian teams touring New Zealand.
The nations’ Twenty20 sides will face off for the Chappell-Hadlee Trophy this week, beginning in Wellington tonight before two matches at Auckland’s Eden Park.
The clashes will be Warner’s last bilateral series for Australia.
The 37-year-old will finish his international career at June’s T20 World Cup in the US and the Caribbean but keep playing shortform cricket in various domestic leagues.
For the Kiwis, the upcoming series presents the last chance to barrack one of their chief antagonists.
Warner was subject to sledging that included attacks on his family on a 2016 visit .
“They got personal,” the opener said in Wellington on Monday.
“If they have to get personal, that’s their character. I just go about my business. That’s upon each individual.
Modern venues are a far cry from Warner’s first taste of Kiwi cricket, back in 2010.
Warner — who had broken into the Australia side a year earlier — flew in for a couple of matches in the NZ domestic competition with the pink-clad Northern Knights. His first outing came at Oamaru. “I literally thought it was a ghost town. I was walking down the street. It was a Saturday . . . there was just no one there,” Warner recalled.
“We legitimately played on a football field, it was quite crazy because coming from Australia (it’d be like) playing on a rugby league field.
“Played with Timmy (Southee), (Trent) Boulty . . . it was great, I really enjoyed it.”
Crowds this week will be bigger than the entire town of Oamaru, with Sky Stadium attracting its biggest cricket turnout since the 2015 ODI World Cup.
That may be because New Zealand fans have been starved of matches against their arch-rivals.
Next week, Australia will play their first test series in the nation since 2016, while the one-day international team hasn’t visited in seven years.
Warner says future sides should honour the transtasman rivalry by competing more often.
“Definitely Australia could come over here more,” he said.
“New Zealand’s come over to us probably six or seven times (since I was here last).
“The schedule has always been a hot topic but . . . with our rivalry and being close neighbours, it just fits.”
The Chappell-Hadlee Trophy was previously reserved for ODI cricket, but the governing bodies either side of the Tasman Sea have agreed to put the trophy up for grabs in the T20 series as well.
When an ODI and T20 series are staged back-to-back, a points system will be implemented to determine the winners.