Eden Park shocks Morris

EDEN Park in Auckland is the only rugby stadium in regular use as an international cricket venue‚ which helps explain why South Africans with bats and balls know the place better than their compatriots with odd shaped balls.

The Springboks first played a test there in 1921‚ or almost 32 years before South Africa’s first cricket test at the ground.

But‚ more than 95 years after Boy Morkel’s Boks won 9-5 in front of a crowd of 40 000‚ the cricketers lead the score.

The Springboks have taken on the All Blacks 11 times at Eden Park‚ where South Africa’s cricketers have played New Zealand in 13 games of all shapes and sizes.

Historic indeed‚ but it’s all new to Chris Morris – who is on his first trip to New Zealand with the South African squad picked to play a T20 and five one-day internationals.

“It was a bit of a shock to my system [on Tuesday] when I got here to see the straight boundaries‚” Morris said yesterday. “But every stadium has its own dynamics that you’ve got to get used to. It does change [things] a little but you’ve got to adapt to any field you play on.”

Eden Park’s pitch is laid along what is the halfway line when the All Blacks or the Blues run out. So the square boundaries are reasonable and the straight boundaries are ridiculous.

“I have never seen a boundary that small and that straight before‚” Morris said. “It’s going to be a different challenge.”

Morris is in the kind of form that should allow him to have fun in the T20 at Eden Park tomorrow. –