Chapman ready for Eden Park cauldron
He’s played a World Twenty20, nearly caused a riot in Chittagong and just made a winning Black Caps debut at Westpac Stadium but Mark Chapman is yet to grace his own ‘home’ cricket ground.
Not as a player, anyway. For the Hong Kong-born, Auckland-schooled batsman, tomorrow night’s big tri-series T20 match against Australia will be the first time the 23-year-old marks his guard on Eden Park’s bouncy drop-in pitch. Australians David Warner, Glenn Maxwell, Marcus Stoinis and company have played there more than Chapman.
‘‘It’s my home ground but I’ve never played there, so it’ll be an interesting experience. We play on the No 2 [for Auckland Aces] and I’ve only ever watched games on the main ground.’’
New Zealand Cricket expects a big crowd for the trans-Tasman match and Chapman expects extra nerves playing in front of his parents, sister, aunt, uncle and thousands of others. But it’s not his first entry into a cricketing cauldron, putting aside his lively debut against England before a sparse Wellington crowd of 12,300 on Tuesday.
Just four years ago, Chapman and his Hong Kong team-mates were close to requiring helicopter evacuation from a heaving Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium in Chittagong.
In 2014 at the World T20 in Bangladesh, Chapman’s team toppled the host nation by two wickets, reaching their target of 109 with two deliveries to spare.
A jam-packed home crowd wasn’t happy. But it could have been worse.
‘‘The biggest for me was playing Bangladesh, in Bangladesh, and managing to beat them in front of about 30,000 at Chittagong,’’ Chapman said.
‘‘We almost knocked them out. If we’d got the runs in about 13 overs their net run rate would have meant they were knocked out of their own tournament.
‘‘Luckily we didn’t. Apparently there were going to be riots and we would have been helicoptered out of the ground.’’
After being presented with his first black cap, along with wicketkeeper Tim Seifert, Chapman looked the part against England in his 20th T20 international.
The left-hander, listed to bat No 4 after a prolific domestic season, was pushed down a spot by Colin de Grandhomme’s elevation. But his Aces team-mate holed out first ball to a brilliant Chris Jordan boundary catch, and Chapman joined his skipper Kane Williamson with six overs left.
‘‘I just wanted to get through the first ball and see what it was like. I saw the England fielders creeping in to stop the single and managed to get one away second ball so I was pretty happy when I got off the mark.
‘‘It was an amazing platform, we couldn’t have asked for a better start. It was just a matter of giving Kane the strike.’’
Williamson was in full flight, and next over blasted Mark Wood for successive sixes on the way to 72 off 46 balls. Chapman, with a T20 Super Smash strike rate of
172 this summer, got in on the act, too, by lofting David Willey and Wood into the crowd in a cameo innings of
20 off 13 as New Zealand made 196-5.
‘‘It was an amazing buzz sitting back and reflecting on what had happened,’’ Chapman said after they closed out a 12-run victory.
Now it’s Australia who fly to Auckland after three straight wins, a spot in next Wednesday’s final at Eden Park guaranteed and the Black Caps their likely opponents.
‘‘The pitch will be pretty good, reasonably flat and quite bouncy,’’ Chapman said. ‘‘I can imagine a few will be going through at shoulder height. I’ll be preparing for that and looking forward to the challenge that someone like Billy Stanlake brings.’’