Historic test century caps great day

The Alternative Cricket Commentary’s second day commentating test cricket was historic and moist. On and off rain delays are where the long-form callers earn their money. But what an honour to be here to witness Kane “Steady the Ship” Williamson’s 18th test hundred to become the first New Zealander to reach that milestone.

How many ways can we praise the man? I asked the team for a few words each on the great man.

James McOnie described our captain as “a bundle of joy”, Mike Lane reckoned he was “studied and stoic”, Paul Ford called him “the great reliever” and Jeremy Wells described him as “a hairy treat”.

Great as it is to be broadcasting from the Beefy Botham Box atop the North Stand, there are challenges.

Our commentary team doesn’t have the resources of the mainstream guys. For a start we don’t even have a stats man working on this test.

We normally do. But Leigh Hart has had his wisdom teeth removed and was in no state to crunch numbers. Luckily it’s the future so we crowd-sourced our numerical insights.

Here’s the quality of the stats we got back: Kane Williamson’s century was the first ever in a pink ball daynight test in New Zealand. Stuart Broad’s legs are 1.372m, 70 per cent of his total height of 1.96m, the same dimensions as a tree frog. Woakes and Stokes have rhyming names.

In 24 test match innings, Henry “Hairy Nipples” Nicholls has hit zero sixes, the same number hit by Chris Martin in 104 innings.

The sentence “England were extremely average facing the pink ball in their first innings” is around 58 letters long, which is what they were bowled out for. Coincidence?

As I say, there are challenges. But it’s still a massive treat being here at the ground calling the ball-by-balls. Bring on day three. What a way to spend a weekend. If you can’t make it to Eden Park, tune in on iheartradio or press the yellow button on your Sky remote for full ACC coverage.